Japanese cathode copper import increased to 2.9 times at 17,053 tonnes in July from a year earlier, according to Ministry of Finance. The import increased from 12,676 tonnes in June after the import was 33,737 tonnes in May, which hit the record since the statistics start in 1988, when Japanese users were concerned about supply shortage due to the major earthquake damaged domestic refineries.
The copper scrap import increased by 44% to 7,939 tonnes in July from a year earlier due to low domestic supply and higher yen exchange rate. The zinc import increased by 61% to 4,514 tonnes for products with 99.99% or more purity in July from a year earlier. The import in April increased to 29,792 tonnes, which was 12 times of a year earlier level and was higher than the import in 2010. However, the import showed month-to-month decrease for 3 months in a row through July due to recovery of domestic supply.