"Remarkably the average global activity levels for 2020 were higher than 2019, driven almost entirely by the explosive recovery in China from the first quarter of this year," Marex Spectron's global head of analytics Dr Guy Wolf said.

The observations from SAVANT, which monitors up to 90% of the world's copper smelting capacity, indicated activity had continued to accelerate in December despite US weakness.

It put the global activity dispersion index average at 55.2, up from 53 in November. 

It said the China index saw a significant increase to 55.5 from the previous month's 48.6, as capacity utilisation continued to climb.

Europe maintained its recent high levels of activity with a December reading of 59.9, marginally down from November's 61.7.

However South America dropped from 62.2 in November to 49.7.

North America, which had seen a huge rebound in August and September, fell to 33.6 (compared with 36.6 in November, 45.4 in October and 56.5 in September), which suggested pandemic-related shutdowns continued to be a major factor.

"China and the rest of Asia continued the rapid expansion that was seen in November, although as we head towards Chinese New Year, we would expect to see some softening of activity levels," Wolf said.

"The stand-out reading in December continues to be North America where the pandemic has depressed activity levels to near the lows of the year."

Readings below 50 indicate lower activity levels than average in SAVANT's activity dispersion index.