COPPER futures have ended nearly flat, locking in modest gains for the week as investors bet on higher demand from top consumer China. The most actively traded contract, for December delivery, fell 0.2 cent, or 0.1 per cent, to settle at $US3.2985 a pound on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. During the week, the contract rose 0.9 per cent. HSBC's gauge of Chinese manufacturing hit a seven-month high in October, data released on Friday showed. Meanwhile, China's official manufacturing PMI, released by the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, came in at an 18-month high. Robust demand from China has kept a floor under copper prices even as investors worried about a potential withdrawal of Federal Reserve stimulus and signs of stumbling growth in the US and Europe. The metal is widely used in construction and manufacturing, making prices sensitive to shifts in economic activity. Stronger economic activity and concerns about metal availability "have triggered a Chinese base metals buying spree," Barclays analysts said in a note on Friday. The amount of copper stored in London Metal Exchange warehouses, the main global stockpile of the metal, is down about 30 per cent from the decade highs reached in late June. Analysts say much of that decline has represented metal bound for separate warehouses within China. "The danger is the more China buys now, the less it may need later on," the Barclays analysts said. Investors' optimism was tempered by this week's moves in China's money market rates, amid lingering concerns over a cash crunch. China's short-term borrowing costs jumped to their highest level since June earlier this week, amid the peak of corporate tax payment season and after large bad debt write-downs by major banks fanned sparked worries about the country's banking system. The People's Bank of China injected additional liquidity into the system Thursday, soothing some of these concerns.