Trade volumes on the London Metal Exchange fell 4.3% in 2015, data from the bourse showed on Friday, dented by slowing growth in Chinese demand for commodities.

Total volumes on the world’s biggest and oldest market for industrial metals came in just short of 170 million contracts, down from around 177 million in 2014, LME-owner Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing said in a statement.

Total trade in the LME’s largest contract, aluminium, slumped nearly 9.1% in 2015 from the year before to 62.5 million lots. Trade in the flagship copper contract was steady at 41 million lots, up half 1%, data from the LME website showed.

Last year saw the departure of even more metals hedge funds following tough trading conditions that have only worsened as global growth sputtered in the past few years. Trader Trafigura started to wind down its Galena Metals Fund in November.

Nickel was a bright spot with volumes up by 6.9% to a record 20.7 million lots. The Shanghai Futures Exchange launched a nickel contract last year, which boosted opportunities for arbitrage between the two markets.

Trade in tin fell 30.7%, while zinc trade was down 5.7% from levels in 2014. Lead was little changed, falling just 0.9%.

HKEX said that year-end LME futures market open interest stood at 2.3 million lots, up 2% from 2014. The LME’s market share of global exchange-traded metals futures was 76.3%.

HKEX will release its final 2015 results on March 2.

• [Editor:Juan]