China has copper, aluminium buying plan -Minmetals

China plans to buy copper, aluminium and other metals for reserves, the chairman of state-owned trading firm Minmetals told reporters on Friday.

Asked if China had started buying copper, Minmetals chairman Zhou Zhongshu said: "We are ready for it." He was speaking on the sidelines of China's annual National People's Congress.

Asked how much copper China would buy, he said: "We have not settled the volume of the copper purchase yet."

Zhou did not say whether the purchase plan was designed to build up strategic copper stocks or was an adhoc plan to buy base metals to support smelters facing weak demand.

Trading sources previously told Reuters that China's State Reserves Bureau (SRB), the agency which manages the state's commodity stockpiles, had bought aluminium and zinc as a way of helping smelters, while its appetite for copper is driven by the desire to build up a strategic reserve.

The SRB has bought a total of 590,000 tonnes of aluminium at a total cost of about $1.05 billion and 159,000 tonnes of zinc for $270 million from local smelters in December-February, according to sources with knowledge of the bidding rounds for those metals.

Two trading sources said last month the SRB had contracted 220,000-240,000 tonnes of copper from suppliers including Minmetals, as well as a Chilean producer and an international

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