China's production of refined copper rose in November to a record high for the second straight month, as more domestic manufacturers turned to local smelters for supplies that traders said were cheaper than imports.

Smelters also continued to take advantage of higher treatment and refining charges (TC/RCs) for raw material copper concentrate, which was also in plentiful supply due to a rise in imports, analysts said.

Refined copper output rose 2.1 percent in November to 531,000 tonnes, up from the previous record of 520,000 tonnes in October, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Tuesday.

Some large smelters have also increased exports of refined copper cathode in the past few months and plan to ship out even more next year, encouraging higher production, traders said. China is the world's top consumer of industrial metals and also the biggest producer of most refined metals.

Demand for metals has weakened this year as China's economic growth slowed, creating record high stockpiles of copper and slowing the growth of imports of refined metals, alloys and semi-finished copper products in October to their lowest in 15 months.

"Most smelters have been doing alright this year even though consumption has slowed and their raw materials supplies have increased recently, encouraging them to produce more metal," said Yang Xiaoguang, analyst at Jinrui Futures, a subsidiary of top producer Jiangxi Copper.

"Capacity of semi-finished copper products has expanded this year, therefore the demand for refined copper has still increased," he said, adding that refined metal output is likely to stay strong in December.

Some analysts and traders had hoped Beijing's recent increase in infrastructure spending would boost copper demand in the fourth quarter of the year.