Ningbo, 3 March 2011

China's consumption of copper and aluminium is likely to rise about 10 percent in 2011, Fan Jianping, head of economic forecasting at the State Information Center think tank, said on Thursday.

Fan, speaking at the CBI copper summit in the eastern port city of Ningbo, also said China was likely to gradually restrict exports of copper and aluminium products.

China, the world's top copper and aluminium consumer, already discourages exports of primary copper and aluminium, which carry export taxes of 10 and 15 percent, respectively.

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