"The focus is only on Japan, nothing else," said one Singapore-based trader. The market had hoped Japan's new banking system reform could give a lift to the economy, and now hopes have switched to tax cuts, the trader said. "But still the hopes seem quite far away. And it may not help in reality," he said. Japan is the world's second largest metals market, next to the United States.

Japan's prime minister Ryutaro Hashimoto said earlier this week vowed he wanted to permanent tax cuts in an overhaul of Japan's tax system, but disappointed markets by offering no details.

The government has repeatedly promised to lower corporate taxes to international levels within three years.

With copper and aluminium hitting their fresh 12-year and four-year lows on the London Metal Exchange(LME) on Thursday, traders in the Far East were more pessimistic than before.

China's major copper producers were scheduled to meet in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangxi on Friday to discuss possible output cuts to shore up sagging prices.

"Talk about an output cut by producers is not helping the market, unless the cut is for real and is big," the trader said. "Sentiment is very bad. People are just waiting for prices to hit new lows," he said. As stockpiles in Japan swell and prospects for a recovery of Japanese demand remain dim, aluminium intended for shipment to Japan has been diverted to other countries, traders said.

"For aluminium, if Japan can't recover, there is nothing to talk about," said one aluminium trader.

Traders said China, which exports its zinc to Singapore, Japan and South Korea, had started to ship zinc to the United States instead of to the warehouse in Singapore. "There is no demand and no profits in Asia. Chinese zinc has stopped coming here for quite some time," said onetrader.

"And I don't think it will come soon," he said.