China's unwrought copper imports rose 50% month-on-month in June to a record 656,483 tonnes, Reuters noted, while iron ore imports hit the highest point in 33 months.
The MySteel 62% Australian iron ore fines iron ore price rose 2.8% to US$110/t.
However copper fell about 1.3% on the London Metal Exchange yesterday to just below $6,500/t, despite the strong demand, possibility of further strike action in Chile and flooding in China causing delays.
US and key Australasian market futures were positive while Europe was downbeat.
The S&P 500 had closed up 1.34% yesterday but the FTSE 100 rose just 0.06%.
Precious metals prices have strengthened on the spot market since this time yesterday.
Gold was worth about $1,808 an ounce at the time of writing and silver was at $19.24/oz.
Among the majors, Freeport-McMoRan closed up 3.69%, having earlier this week priced an upsized offering of $1.5 billion of senior notes, with the net proceeds to fund its concurrent offer to purchase certain outstanding senior notes.
Rio Tinto rose 1.36% in London, Barrick Gold gained 3.54% in Toronto and BHP was up 2.1% in morning Australian trade.
