Copper prices fell in New York after a report showed the economy in China, the world’s biggest metal user, expanded at the slowest pace in almost 10 years last quarter, eroding speculation that demand will rebound. China’s gross domestic product expanded 6.1 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, government data showed. That trailed forecasts by economists and marked the weakest pace since the fourth quarter of 1999. Before today, copper surged 57 percent this year on speculation that government spending would spur use of the metal. “The Chinese data disappointed,” Alex Heath, the head of industrial-metals trading at RBC Capital Markets in London, said in a report. The figures were “not the kind of picture that should support further price gains on the metals.” Copper futures for July delivery dropped 0.5 cent, or 0.2 percent, to $2.204 at 9:09 a.m. a pound on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The price surged 3.8 percent yesterday as inventories declined. On the London Metal Exchange, copper for delivery in three months rose $16, or 0.3 percent, to $4,835 a ton ($2.19 a pound). The price reached a record $8,940 on July 2.

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