BEIJING - China's monthly aluminium exports surged to a record high in January, according to customs data released on Thursday, as weak domestic demand led to another bumper month of shipments overseas.

Exports of unwrought aluminium and aluminium products from China, the world's top producer of the metal, reached 552,000 tonnes last month, the General Administration of Customs said.

That was up 6.2 percent from a revised figure of 520,000 tonnes for December 2018 and up 25.5 percent year-on-year, beating the previous record high of 542,700 tonnes set in December 2014.

Aluminium exports from China have now exceeded 500,000 tonnes for seven of the past eight months.

The record comes as the United States, which has slapped tariffs on Chinese aluminium products and urged China to tackle aluminium over-capacity, conducts its latest round of trade talks with China in Beijing.

Meanwhile, China's unwrought copper imports rose in January from the previous month.

Arrivals of anode, refined, alloy and semi-finished copper products into China came in at 479,000 tonnes last month. That was up 14 percent from 420,000 tonnes in December and up 8.9 percent from 440,000 tonnes in January 2018 to the highest level since September.

Imports of Category 7 copper scrap, such as coiled copper cable and waste motors, into China have been banned completely since the start of this year, adding to an existing crackdown on solid waste and a 25 percent tariff on imports of scrap material from the United States.

This has left consumers seeking more of the metal in other forms.

China's imports of copper concentrate, which is processed into refined copper, came in at 1.895 million tonnes in January, the customs data showed, the second-highest monthly figure on record.

The number was up 29.9 percent from December, which was the lowest monthly total since February 2018, and 17 percent from a year earlier, customs said.

(Reporting by Tom Daly; editing by Richard Pullin) ((tom.daly@thomsonreuters.com; +86 10 6627 1023;))