CHINA’S 10 major copper producers have asked the government to buy metal for its strategic stockpile, joining a growing chorus in the country’s stricken base metal industry that is pleading for State intervention to shore up prices at multi-year lows.

    In a joint statement released Tuesday by Antaike, a State-owned research firm, the group of smelters said they will cut output next year by 350,000 tons.

    Reports said Saturday that nine copper producers had agreed to lower production in 2016 by at least 200,000 tons.

    Last week, China’s aluminium, nickel and zinc producers called on the Central Government to buy up surplus metal, in the first coordinated effort since 2009 to revive prices suffering their worst rout since the global financial crisis.

    On Tuesday, the smelters said they will not expand capacity over the next few years to try to prevent a drop in prices that have hurt oversupplied industries. Still the producers said the copper market is not in surplus and prices do not reflect market fundamentals.

    “We hope the government stop approving new copper capacities to be built and step up support to key enterprises,” they said in the statement. (SD-Agencies)