Tin prices hit a two-year high above $20,000 a tonne last week amid tight supplies across many base metals. Falling inventories have also pushed the metal higher, plummeting nearly 50 per cent this year on the London Metal Exchange. Tin is used in soldering in electronics. Inventories of the metal, which is used for soldering in electronics, have fallen by 50 per cent. Tin is now at its highest level since August 2008. It has risen more than 30 per cent in two months. Demand is rebounding, even through the traditionally slow summer period. Germany’s manufacturing sector on Thursday surprised commentators by reporting a higher than expected 3.2 per cent rise in factory orders in June. The LME’s index of metal prices, which tracks the six base metals traded on the exchange, has risen to its highest level since April, erasing almost all of the losses suffered when fears about the eurozone debt crisis gripped global markets. The price of iron ore, the key industrial commodity used in steelmaking, was also higher. Spot benchmark Australian iron ore – 62 per cent iron content – was up 0.5 per cent at $143.60 a tonne. That is a 22 per cent rebound since its recent lows in mid-July. China's copper demand is expected to grow at 8 percent this year from last year, and at a similar pace next year, a senior executive of Chile's Codelco, the world's largest copper producer, said last week. "The growth of demand in China is practically unstoppable," Rodrigo Toro, corporate senior vice president of Codelco, said last week. Gold consolidated mode following its bounce above $1,200 an ounce the previous day. Spot gold gained 0.2 per cent to $1,196.90 an ounce. Aluminium has risen above $2,200 a tonne; lead has hit $2,250 a tonne; and nickel is above $21,500.

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