London copper prices rose to near three-year highs on Monday, underpinned by improving manufacturing profits in China that pointed to a robust economy in the world's top user of metals.

China's producer price inflation unexpectedly accelerated to a six-month high in September as a construction boom shows no signs of abating and as a government crackdown on air pollution triggers fears of winter shortages and frenzied jumps in commodity prices.

The inflation reading followed data showing China's copper imports surged in September, fueling optimism about demand, said analyst Helen Lau of broker Argonaut Securities in Hong Kong.

China's copper imports surged by 26.5 percent in September from a year ago, customs data showed.

China's economy is expected to grow 7 percent in the second half of this year, said Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People's Bank of China, the country's central bank.

"Based on these quite solid fundamentals, people will react very positively to any newsflow on copper," said Lau.

London Metal Exchange copper rallied by 0.8 percent to $6,941 after closing little changed in the previous session. Prices earlier struck their loftiest in a month at $6,955.50, closing in on a three-year top of $6,970 a ton hit on September 5.

Shanghai Futures Exchange copper struck at 55,290 yuan ($8,402), posting a four and a half year high, before moderating back to 55,060 yuan a ton.

Hedge funds and money managers raised their net long positions in copper futures and options for the first time in five weeks in the week leading up to October 10, US Commodity Futures Trading Commission data showed on Friday.