China zinc smelter cuts fail to tip the supply-demand balance

Output cuts announced by Chinese zinc smelters last week will do little to tighten next year's global supply-demand balance in refined metal because already known mining cutbacks would have forced smelters to reduce production anyway. On top of that, hard-hit prices will fail to get much of a lasting boost in coming months due to a glut of world inventories, although there may be spikes of short-covering, analysts and investors said.