CAPE TOWN (miningweekly.com) - Copper prices were expected to recover to an average of $4 200/t in 2009, Standard Bank Head of Commodities Research Walter de Wet said on Monday.

Addressing delegates at the 2009 Mining Indaba in Cape Town, although he did not see any short-term upside for commodities, De Wet predicted that the commodity market, and especially the copper market, would begin to see an improvement by the second half of the year.

The improvement in the copper price would be supported by steady construction and infrastructure activity in China.

"Standard Bank expects copper to improve in the second half of the year to around $4 200 on average on the back of a slightly weaker dollar as well as some restocking by copper consumers, especially from China," continued de Wet.

While demand for copper from China was anticipated to remain robust in 2009, he warned that demand in the US, Europe and Japan would continue to decline.

This was due to the fact that the construction sector in the industrialised world, especially in the US, was under extreme pressure, thus diminishing the demand for copper.

De Wet added that there would be no demand growth from the transport sector and limited demand from the electronics industry, owing to consumer confidence in Europe, the United States and Japan being at lowest levels in decades.

However, he expected global manufacturing to start expanding again in the middle of next year.

He expected the expansion of manufacturing to be much faster in emerging markets and China.

De Wet concluded that copper stocks were expected to rise as well this year with copper production increasing marginally by 0,75% year-on-year.

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