BEIJING, March 11 (Reuters) - Zinc prices rose on Monday,
driven by dwindling London Metal Exchange inventories as well as
a pledge from China's central bank to increase loans and lower
borrowing costs after a sharp drop in bank lending in February.
The metal used to galvanise steel has risen more than 11
percent in London so far in 2019 as zinc stocks at London Metal
Exchange-registered warehouses, which fell by 1,125 tonnes on
Friday, have halved to below 60,000 tonnes MZN-STOCKS.
In the short term, sentiment over shrinking stocks continues
to ferment "but the medium- and long-term oversupply trend has
not yet been broken" for zinc, Jinrui Futures wrote in a note.
LME zinc prices should trade in a range of $2,700-$2,900 a
tonne this week, the Chinese brokerage added.
FUNDAMENTALS
* ZINC: Three-month LME zinc rose as much as 1.3
percent to $2,746.50 a tonne, and stood at $2,740.50 as of 0344
GMT. The most traded zinc contract on the Shanghai Futures
Exchange nudged up 0.4 percent to 21,405 yuan
($3,184.08) a tonne by the end of the morning.
* ZINC TC: Global trader and miner Glencore has
struck a deal with its Canadian subsidiary Noranda Income Fund
on the terms of zinc treatment charges for the coming year, but
did not disclose the fees.
* LME: The LME is launching seven new cash-settled futures
contracts on Monday, including hot-rolled coil (HRC) steel,
alumina and cobalt.
* COPPER: LME copper was flat at $6,397 a tonne,
while ShFE copper slipped 0.1 percent to 49,080 yuan a
tonne.
* COPPER: China's unwrought copper imports fell year-on-year
in February to their lowest in 11 months, while copper
concentrate imports tied the all-time monthly record, signalling
that the world's top copper consumer is churning out more metal
itself.
* FREEPORT: The Indonesian government has approved one-year
export allowances for copper concentrate for miners PT Freeport
Indonesia and PT Amman Mineral Nusa Tenggara.
