Coronavirus pushes China’s copper demand into negative growth

This is a follow-up to our insight ‘The impact of the coronavirus on the copper market’ published on 6 February. The outbreak of the virus has led to delayed restarts of copper first-use and end-use sectors after the Chinese new year holiday. Restrictions on transportation of people and goods mean plants cannot immediately return to full operation despite obtaining government approval to restart. In addition, the health crisis has done more damage to Hubei province, the epicentre of the outrbreak, compared with other regions in China. In this insight, we have a more in-depth discussion on the above factors and their impact on China’s copper demand. We also set out our analysis of these key uncertainties in two scenarios to quantify the impact on Chinese total copper consumption.