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metal traders who went to london to participate in the "london metal exchange (lme) week" event were surprised when they met friends and customers from china. according to bloomberg, representatives from china suddenly morphed into the most optimistic camp on every occasion.

recently, china's stock market has recorded its largest gain in more than a decade, while iron ore has soared by more than 20%. as the metals industry's largest annual meeting draws to a close, several senior metals traders say they haven't seen their chinese counterparts so optimistic since before the pandemic.

"sometimes nothing happens in decades, and sometimes decades of things happen in a few weeks." fu xiao, head of global commodity market strategy at bank of china international, quoted vladimir lenin at the "lme week" event . "we saw strong momentum last week with the introduction of unprecedented policy measures. i firmly believe that significant and fundamental changes are taking place in the market and that a major turnaround is coming."

at a private lunch earlier this week, one participant recalled how traders and analysts taking turns expressing their pessimism on the metal. it wasn't until the conversation came to one of the chinese executives present that the others were startled to be told that they were ignoring the significance of china's policy shift.

of course, many people, including some chinese metal company executives, are still wary of being overly bullish in the short term. inventories of copper, aluminum and other metals have increased significantly this year. and china's new year comes relatively early, meaning there are only a few weeks left before the metal's major buyers begin their off-season holiday season. it may take some time for improved sentiment in china to translate into increased actual demand for the metal.

nonetheless, positive signs have emerged following the introduction of stimulus measures such as interest rate cuts, reserve requirement ratio cuts, liquidity support for the stock market, and easing of home purchase restrictions.

linda yueh, adjunct professor of economics at london business school, said at the "lme week" event that if chinese urban residents start to see economic recovery, especially the real estate industry, then there will be great potential for further growth.