ASEAN base metal demand to soar 65%: Researcher

ASEAN base metal demand to soar 65%: Researcher

SYDNEY (Reuter): ASEAN base metal demand is forecast to soar 65 percent over the next ten years, according to minerals research house AME Mineral Economics.

"By then the total import requirement will be 4.05 million tons, a much needed boost to a jaundiced industry," AME director Peter Blackman told an ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) mining conference here.

He said ASEAN growth compared with a forecast 50 percent rise in demand for metals, primarily for aluminum and copper, from Korea and Taiwan.

Blackman said the intensity of copper use by the tiger economies of Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore probably peaked in the late 1980s and is unlikely to rise further.

"ASEAN countries such as Malaysia and Thailand are now joining the ranks of the tiger economies as their copper intensities are catching up with the tigers," Blackman said.

"While our forecasts relating to metals demand are positive for Asia, the rest of the world apart from the U.S. is pretty lackluster at the moment," Blackman said.

He said the huge metal inventories hanging over many markets, particularly for aluminum and nickel, dampened the research house's outlook.

"But ...our cumulative feeling is that we are quietly optimistic that metal demand will continue to pick up," he said.

Blackman said AME forecasts were based on a proposition tying physical metal consumption and real gross domestic product. He said in Malaysia, for example, each one percent rise in GDP boosts copper demand by 3.22 percent while in the mature economy of Japan each GDP point rise raises demand by only 0.6 percent.