London copper climbed 1 per cent on Friday as reports that the US Federal Reserve could pause from raising interest rates helped the metal recover from its steepest slide in five weeks in the prior session.

Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange was up 1 per cent at $6,129.50 a tonne by 0235 GMT. The contract dropped 1.7 per cent on Thursday, hitting its weakest since November 14 at one point, after the arrest of a top Chinese executive in Canada dampened hopes for a resolution to the US-China trade conflict.

The US-China trade dispute remains the “largest downside risk for the global and Chinese economic outlook’’, said CRU analyst Chris Wu, who sees copper averaging around $6,470 in 2019, down from this year's average so far of about $6,574.

While demand from top copper consumer China is weaker this month, Wu said market sentiment for next year remains positive as China heads into the 70th year since its founding. “Some market participants are expecting stimulus measures from the government especially infrastructure projects,” she said.

The most-traded February copper on the Shanghai Futures Exchange slipped 0.1 per cent to 49,090 yuan ($7,130) a tonne.

The Wall Street Journal reported Fed officials are considering whether to signal a new wait-and-see mentality after a likely rate increase at their meeting in December, spurring Asian equities higher. US President Donald Trump did not know about the plans to arrest a top executive at Chinese telecom giant Huawei in Canada, two US officials said, in an apparent attempt to stop the incident from impeding crucial trade talks with Beijing.

Chile's state copper miner Codelco reached an agreement on a new collective labour contract in early negotiations with the union of workers at its Gabriela Mistral mine in northern Chile. An Indian court is expected on Friday to follow an experts' panel recommendation and order the reopening of a copper smelter closed after 13 people died when police fired on environmental protesters in May.

US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the US job market is very strong, a day ahead of the release of non-farm payrolls, which economists said likely increased by 200,000 in November after surging by 250,000 in October.

LME aluminium edged up 0.5 per cent to $1,945.50 a tonne and zinc gained 0.1 per cent to $2,596.50. In Shanghai, aluminium eased 0.7 per cent to 13,575 yuan per tonne and zinc rose 0.6 per cent to 21,390 yuan.

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