Copper industry heading for overcapacity

China's copper industry reached a supply-demand balance this year, but an overcapacity situation will inevitably occur next year, said industrial experts.

"The growth of China's consumption of refined copper will be lower than the country's GDP growth in the following years, which indicates a coming overcapacity situation in the copper sector," said Li Chunlan, industrial analyst with commodity data firm CRU International Ltd.

She estimated that China's copper consumption in 2014 will grow by 4.4 percent year-on-year to 9 million metric tons.

The figures represent a slight slowdown, with the year-on-year growth figure for the 2013 calculated at 4.6 percent.

"Large mining companies are changing their strategy from increasing the resources reserves of copper mines to raising their profitability," said Li. "At the same time, many projects are delayed or suspended because of rising costs."