Commodity Blog

Analysts remained bullish on palladium even though the metal has declined 1.8 percent to $643.75 in London this year on concerns that car sales in China, the world biggest market for vehicles, fell. Still, demand for the metal from carmakers is record high. At the same time, supply from Russia is expected to dwindle.

Demand for cotton in China is expected to increase, bringing prices higher. Zhang Hongxia, the president of Weiqiao Textile Co., predicted that China’s consumption may rise to 9.58 million metric tons in 2012 from 9 million tons in 2011 as the nation’s textile industry is recovering. Chinese imports of the commodity have already advanced 64 percent to 942,400 tons in the first two months of this year. Cotton futures for delivery in September rose 0.2 percent to 21,265 yuan ($3,372) per metric ton on the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange today.

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