Copper higher

Sydney/Melbourne: London copper prices charged through the $7,000 mark for the first time in three years on Monday, underpinned by improving manufacturing profits in China that pointed to robust growth in the world´s top user of metals.

China´s producer price inflation unexpectedly accelerated to a six-month high in September as a construction boom showed no signs of abating and as a government crackdown on air pollution triggered fears of winter shortages.

The inflation reading followed data showing China´s copper imports surged in September, fuelling optimism about demand, said analyst Helen Lau of broker Argonaut Securities in Hong Kong. "Based on these quite solid fundamentals, people will react very positively to any newsflow on copper," she said. London Metal Exchange copper struck $7,083.50 a tonne, the highest since September 2014, and traded at $7,058 by 0550 GMT, up 2.6 percent.