Sinosteel Corp Ltd, China's largest state-owned steel trading firm, has acted as a broker to import nearly 10 million tonnes of iron ore in the first five months of the year, three times the level of last year, an unnamed executive from the company told the Shanghai Securities News yesterday. China's reliance on imported iron ore is expected to rise to 70 percent this year.

China imported 188 million tonnes of iron ore in the first four months and in April the volume reached 57 million tonnes, up 23 percent and 33 percent from the same time last year respectively.

"It was mainly because small and medium-sized steel mills in China have turned away from domestic ore to imported ore. As imported ore is more competitive in price, domestic steel mills' reliance on imports this year may rise to 70 percent from about 50 percent previously," said the executive.

China, which produces about 500 million tons of crude steel annually, largely relies on iron ore imports from the Big Three mining groups, Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Vale, which hold 70 percent of the global trade.

With only a week to go before last year's contracts expire, the China Iron and Steel Association said benchmark iron ore price negotiations between Chinese steel mills and the global mining groups are not expected to be completed this month.

For more information, please consult the coverage in Chinese at:

http://paper.cnstock.com/paper_new/html/2009-06/23/content_71004704.htm

(China.org.cn June 23, 2009)