Aluminium prices climbed to an 11-week high on Thursday as buying interest increased with improving demand prospects from top consumer China. Three-month aluminium on the London Metal Exchange (LME) touched $2,313.5 per metric ton, the highest since Jan. 4. It last traded up 1.7% at $2,311.5 per ton in official open-outcry trading. Top consumer China imported 720,000 tons of unwrought aluminium and products in January-February this year, up 93.6% from the same period last year, customs data showed. In other metals, LME lead was up 0.4% at $2,072. LME lead stocks rose 34% on Wednesday to their highest in 11 years after massive arrivals of metal in warehouses in Singapore and South Korea. Visibility of lead stocks has pushed the discount for the cash over the three-month contract to above $50 a ton, its highest since June 1992. Overall industrial metals prices are likely to be capped by a stronger dollar, which makes it costlier to buy the greenback-priced commodity. The dollar index strengthened on Thursday after US jobless claims unexpectedly fell and the Federal Reserve decided to keep key rates unchanged.