Shanghai copper futures decline amid gloomy economic data

Copper prices on the Shanghai Futures Exchange (SHFE) declined Friday after official data showed that China's consumer price index (CPI) remained close to its lowest point since November 2009.

The most-traded copper contract for March delivery on the SHFE closed at 44,250 yuan ($7,134.96) per ton, 430 yuan or 0.96 percent lower than the previous trading day. The trading volume Friday was 384,066 lots, 175,542 lots lower than on Thursday.

The SHFE was closed on the previous Friday, January 2, due to the New Year holidays.

The benchmark three-month copper contract on the London Metal Exchange (LME) fell as low as $6,073.50 per ton Friday, the weakest since June 2010, and closed at $6,801 per ton, down 0.4 percent from the previous trading day, according to a Friday report from Reuters.

"Sentiment is quite negative and I see downside risks from the current price levels … There's higher risk aversion coming from the macro side and also the slump in oil prices, which we think will continue," Daniel Briesemann, an analyst at Commerzbank in Frankfurt, was quoted as saying by the Reuters report.

China consumes more than 40 percent of the world's copper supply, and recent weak economic data for the country has weighed on sentiment in the copper market.

China's CPI rose by 1.5 percent year-on-year in December, slightly up from 1.4 percent in November, which was its lowest point in five years, the country's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Friday.

China is also facing pressure from copper oversupply in the coming months, China Securities Journal reported Tuesday.