Nearly one third of China's copper consumption comes from recycled waste and mixed coppers, said an official with the Chinese society of non-ferrous metals industry Saturday.

Wang Jiwei, an official with the society, said that China has geared up for reusing and recycling used coppers, in a bid to release the tension of copper resource shortage, and has brought positive influence to both domestic and international copper markets.

Statistics provided by Wang's society show that China recycled and reused 1.16 million tons of "waste" and mixed coppers in 2004, accounting for 28 percent of the country's total consumption, up 14 percent from that of the previous year. The above figures exclude coopers reused directly by cooper processing enterprises, totaling one million tons.

Last year witnessed an increase of 25 percent import of waste coppers, while the electrolytic cooper import reduced by 12 percent.

Ranking the world's No.1 copper consumer, China is in dear shortage of copper mine resources. A great gap between copper demand and production has spurred more enterprises to resort to recycled coppers.

China has already formed a structure for reusing waste coppers, with import and distribution centers established in port cities and other areas.