Japan Electrolytic Copper Import Rises by 61% in May

Japanese electrolytic copper import increased by 61.1% in May from a year earlier, announced by Ministry of Finance on Thursday. The import unit value increased by 33% when official copper ingot price hit record 1.05 million yen per tonne. The anode copper for electrolytic refining increased by 92.1%. The aluminium ingot import increased by 9.3% in May from a year earlier. The electrolytic lead import decreased to a third while electrolytic zinc import increased by 8.6%. The nickel ingot import increased by 15.4% while the tin ingot import decreased by 24.4%. Japanese electrolytic copper export increased by 11% to 28,860 tonnes in May from a year earlier. The lead ingot export increased to 3.9 times. The copper scrap export increased by 6% while the lead scrap export decreased by 40%. The zinc ingot export for products with more than 99.99% purity decreased by 73.4%. The alloyed aluminium ingot export increased by 35% while the aluminium ingot export decreased by 77.5%.