China's refined copper production rose 10.6 percent in September from the previous month to a record due to higher output from new smelting capacity and as increased supply of raw materials boosted operations at existing plants.

The record production likely reflected stronger-than-expected consumption in the world's top producer and consumer of refined copper given that China's imports of the metal also surged 32 percent in September from the previous month to a 19-month high, traders said.

But it could mean that supply in the domestic market was plentiful, cutting demand for spot imports of refined copper, which would depress copper prices in the international market.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on Monday that production of refined copper hit 620,086 tonnes in September, compared to the previous record 580,000 tonnes in December 2012. The September 2013 production was 21 percent higher than the same month last year.

"We have raised forecasts of 2013 production to 6.3 million tonnes from the previous around 6 million tonnes," said Yang Changhua, chief copper analyst at state-backed research firm Antaike, who had expected September production at 560,000-570,000 tonnes.

Some new smelting capacity started production in the third quarter of the year and their output had been rising gradually in the past two months, traders said.

Increased supply of raw material copper concentrates also had supported high production of metal with imports of ores and concentrates hitting a monthly record 1.02 million tonnes in September, up 45 percent from the same month last year.

Refined copper production rose 12.9 percent from a year earlier to 4,955,619 tonnes in the first nine months of the year, the data showed.

China, also the top producer and consumer of aluminium, produced 1,857,845 tonnes of primary aluminium in September, inching 0.3 percent lower from a record 1,863,433 tonnes in August due to low domestic prices AL-A00-CCNMM, which have fallen nearly 4 percent so far this year.

Henan was the largest aluminium producing province with 266,691 tonnes in September, followed by Xinjiang which produced 243,951 tonnes.

In the first three quarters of the year, China produced 16,214,029 tonnes of primary aluminium, up 8.7 percent from the same period in 2012.