Reuters reported that copper rose after briefly hitting a one week high as data showed China's economy grew at its slowest rate in three years in the second quarter but maintained a pace that is not expected to undermine fragile global growth.
China's economy grew 7.6% in the April to June quarter from a year earlier. The number was in line with market forecasts however, giving investors some relief even as it left full year growth on course for its softest showing since 1999.
The world's top copper consumer also released June reports for fixed asset investment and retail sales both of which slightly exceeded forecasts. Three month copper on the London Metal Exchange rose to USD 7,666.75 per tonne its highest since July 6th 2012. It was later trading up 1.22% at USD 7,646.50 per tonne by 0506 EDT on track for a slight 0.6% gain for the week.
Mr Eugen Weinberg analyst of Commerzbank said that "I don't think anybody has taken this data positively. Most of the negative risk was already priced, we knew China is slowing down so there is no surprise and it was better than feared."
He said that "I think we will bottom out. The future is bright for China. OK Europe is a disaster and US growth has slowed but it's in the price and central banks will likely try countering the trend with more liquidity."
European Central Bank policymakers held out the possibility of taking further measures to boost the flagging euro zone economy after a cut in their deposit rate to zero showed no sign of jolting banks into lending out more money.
Copper came under pressure earlier in the week however after minutes from the US Federal Reserve meeting showed the health of the world's biggest economy might need to weaken further before the central bank will launch a new quantitative easing program.
Overall investors were still expected to stay cautious, even if many market participants expected Beijing would continue introducing more measures to maintain growth which should help support copper prices.
Mr Andy Du derivatives department director of Orient Futures said that "I think China should be able to hit 8 percent GDP growth this year although the economy should continue to be weak in the second half of the year."
