As July arrived, with the onset of the off-season, air-conditioning enterprises saw their inventories remain at a high level, while the pace of new production schedules and cargo pick-up for copper pipe & tube slowed down. According to data from SMM, the weekly operating rate of copper pipe & tube production fell to 61.71% this week, exceeding expectations. The rise in copper prices to over 80,000 yuan/mt also had an impact, but the main reason was the off-season factor. Most enterprises indicated that overall orders in July might decline by 5-10% compared to June.