Copper Sheet Price Increasing in Tokyo

Copper sheet market price is strong at around 905 yen per kilogram for small sized products with 2 millimeters thick and at around 1,085 yen per kg for large sized products with 2 mm thick in Tokyo.Domestic official copper ingot price was revised up by 50,000 yen to 920,000 yen per tonne on Wednesday, which is the indicator for market prices of copper fabricated products. Copper product dealer sources said they would raise copper sheet reselling prices next week unless the official copper price plunges down.However, dealer source also said they could not pass higher copper cost on the reselling price at once. Dealers would raise copper sheet price gradually up to the demand conditions, which seems to increase by about 30 yen per kg next week.Dealers are concerned copper sheet shipment is recently slow. The demand maintains stagnant when capital investment related to electric distributors became slower. Copper sheet demand is also inactive for constructions and daily goods. Dealers cannot appeal price hike strongly under the situation.Some of domestic copper fabricators seek to raise their rolling charges for copper sheet to pass higher productive costs due to high copper price. The fabricators had prepared to carry out the hike in April. However, the hike actually seems to be postponed into May when copper price has soared up since March and copper sheet demand maintains slow. Consequently copper sheet market price keeps increasing.