KUALA LUMPUR: London copper rose for a second day on Tuesday after China's GDP expanded faster than expected, easing concern that demand for industrial metals from the world's second-largest economy will falter amid the euro zone debt crisis.
Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange climbed 1.7 percent to $8,227.75 a tonne by 0705 GMT, extending gains from the previous session. Prices have gained more than 8 percent so far this month, after tumbling 21 percent in 2011.
The most-traded April copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange rose 2.7 percent to 59,930 yuan ($9,500) a tonne.
China's gross domestic product grew 8.9 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier, beating expectations for the economy to expand 8.7 percent.
"This is good news as it shows the economy hasn't slowed as much as feared by some," said Yiping Huang, chief economist for emerging Asia at Barclays Capital in Hong Kong.
"But we still have to watch out for risks, including the recession in Europe and China's domestic housing industry correction."
Copper had risen on Monday as investors decided that Standard & Poor's downgrades of nine euro zone countries' credit ratings last week were largely priced in and focused instead on positive fundamentals while awaiting the China data.
Asian shares and the euro rose on Tuesday as the slightly better-than-expected Chinese economic growth data soothed investor worries that the euro zone debt crisis is dragging down the global economy.
US rating agency Standard & Poor's cut its credit rating of the euro zone's EFSF rescue fund on Monday, and Greece was under pressure to break a deadlock in debt swap talks to avert an unruly default.
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