China might be surpassing expectations in the Olympics, but a weakening PMI and faltering demand from the world’s largest economy has kept sterling performances on the mineral markets at bay.
Fluorspar prices remained stable this week, although market commentators outside China repeated previous warnings of negative market sentiments.
“Demand in both China and elsewhere is pretty weak,” one source told IM, dismissing suggestions that prices for Chinese fluorspar were looking up.
“The overall market sentiment is quite the opposite,” the source said.
Other sources speculated that reduced production in China, which fell 7.5% to 4.2m tonnes in the...