Hong Kong
Jiangxi Copper , China’s top producer of the metal, posted a 20 percent drop in net profit for 2014, a third consecutive annual decline due to weak metal prices, and forecast a tough outlook for base metals due to overcapacity.
The company expects copper prices to stay weak, pressured by a buoyant US dollar as the Federal Reserve moves towards tightening monetary policy.
Net profit fell to 2.8 billion yuan ($450.8 million) last year from 3.6 billion yuan in 2013, the company said in a filing to the Shanghai stock exchange on Wednesday.
“As new capacity keeps coming onstream, oversupply in copper concentrate will aggravate. Metals markets are hardly optimistic,” China’s biggest integrated copper producer said. London copper prices have fallen 2 percent since the beginning of this year after dropping by 14 percent in 2014.
LME three-month copper was last quoted at $6,100 per ton, down from $6,145 when it ended the previous session.