China, the world's biggest copper user, said on Wednesday it would strengthen its management of commodity supply and demand to curb "unreasonable" increases in prices, and prevent them being passed on to consumers.
The most-traded June copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange dipped 0.5% to 76,380 yuan ($11,887.94) a tonne, clawing back from early losses of 2.5%.
The better than expected results followed similarly upbeat news from rivals such as HSBC and Lloyds earlier in the week, as British banks benefited from government job support schemes that have put back the hit from the pandemic.
Its copper production stood at 301,200 tonnes in the first quarter, but zinc fell 13,000 tonnes year-on-year to 282,600 tonnes and nickel was down 11% at 25,200 tonnes.
Hammerson reversed course to trade 2.5% lower. The company on Monday confirmed that it was in talks for a possible sale of its retail parks portfolio to Canadian private equity player Brookfield Asset Management.