OREANDA-NEWS. March 10, 2015. London copper sank to its lowest in two weeks on Monday as the dollar rose after strong US jobs data fuelled expectations of a mid-year rate hike.

US employers stepped up hiring in February and the jobless rate fell to its lowest level since the spring before President Barack Obama took office, which could put pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates in June.

The dollar resurgence added to headwinds for commodities that were further unsettled by weak trade data out of top user China at the weekend, said analyst Daniel Morgan of UBS in Sydney.

"China's start to the year feels a tad soft specifically on copper and coal," he said, adding that the full picture for Chinese demand wouldn't be clear until late April, given this year's unusually late Lunar New Year.

China's exports picked up in the first two months of 2015, propelled by February's exceptionally strong performance that was inflated by the timing of Lunar New Year, while a slide in imports pointed to persistent weakness in the economy.

Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange was down 0.3 percent at \\$5,730 a tonne by 0320 GMT after 1.5-percent losses the session before. Copper earlier slipped to \\$5,714 - its weakest since Feb. 24. The most-traded May copper contract on the Shanghai Futures Exchange was down 1.4 percent at 41,890 yuan (\\$6,686) a tonne.

China's imports of commodities eased again in February, as the Lunar New Year holiday took a bite out of shipping volumes, preliminary customs data showed on Sunday.

Copper imports, at 280,000 tonnes in February, slowed by nearly a third from January and were down more than a quarter from a year earlier.

"While the slowdown in opportunistic buying we first noticed in January appears to have continued, weak demand from the manufacturing and construction sectors also appears to have contributed to the fall," ANZ said in a note.

"However, in light of the increasing supply-side disruptions being reported in February, we remain of the view that buying will pick up over the coming months."

Elsewhere, output at the Pelambres mine of Chilean copper miner Antofagasta Plc has been reduced by about 5,000 tonnes in the past week due to protests by local villagers, Pelambres said.

Reflecting a more optimistic view on copper prices, hedge funds and money managers switched to a net long position of 998 contracts in the week to March 3, adding 1,341 contracts, US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) data showed.