METALS-Aluminium hits 11-week high on improved demand prospects

(Updates prices as at 1709 GMT) By Julian Luk LONDON, March 21 (Reuters) - Aluminium prices climbed to an 11-week high on Thursday as buying interest increased with improving demand prospects from top consumer China. Three-month aluminium on the London Metal Exchange (LME) CMAL3 touched $2,313.5 per metric ton, the highest since Jan. 4. It last traded up 1.3% at $2,301.5 per ton at 1709 GMT. Top consumer China imported 720,000 tons of unwrought aluminium and products in January-February this year, up 93.6% from the same period last year, customs data showed. "Aluminium has been lagging behind its base metals peers, it is cheap. The latest Chinese import data is surprising and widely cited as a short-term driver," a trader source said. Brokerage Marex also saw improving demand for LME aluminium. "Money is coming in, and we have seen evidence of that first in copper but more recently in aluminium," said Alastair Munro, senior base metals strategist at Marex, anticipating more capital flows into underperforming commodity assets. In other metals, LME lead CMPB3 was up 0.4% at $2,072. LME lead stocks rose 34% on Wednesday to their highest in 11 years after massive arrivals of metal in warehouses in Singapore and South Korea. Visibility of lead stocks has pushed the discount for the cash over the three-month contract MPB0-3 to above $50 a ton, its highest since June 1992. Overall industrial metals prices are likely to be capped by a stronger dollar, which makes it costlier to buy the greenback-priced commodity. The dollar index =USD strengthened on Thursday after U.S. jobless claims unexpectedly fell and the Federal Reserve decided to keep key rates unchanged. LME copper CMCU3 was up 0.3% at $8,951.5 a ton, nickel CMNI3 increased 0.2% to $17,520, zinc CMZN3 rose 0.7% to $2,526 and tin CMSN3 jumped 2.4% to $27,895. (Reporting by Julian Luk; Editing by Varun H K, Jan Harvey, Alexandra Hudson) (([email protected])) ((For related news and prices, click on the codes in brackets: LME price overview RING= COMEX copper futures 0#HG: All metals news MTL All commodities news C Foreign exchange rates FX= SPEED GUIDES LME/INDEX ))