China may have built up copper inventories to a combined 1.2 million tons at governmental and "non-governmental" levels, the China Business News reported Thursday, citing a research note from Beijing Antaike, a state-owned metals consultancy.

The stocks are equivalent to 80 days of consumption, and they include the 235,000 tons of copper bought by the State Reserve Bureau early this year to shore up dwindling domestic demand and falling prices as the global financial crisis unfolded, Beijing Antaike was cited as saying.

The consultancy also revised its estimate of China's copper consumption in 2009 to 5.5 million tons from 5.3 million tons, it was cited as saying.

The research note didn't define "non-governmental" copper inventories.