China's daily iron ore import rises in Jan.

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Friday, 13 February 2009

Although the customs statistics show that China's iron ore import dropped in January this year, the import actually increased deducting the factor of the Chinese traditional Spring Festival holidays, said an analyst. According to the customs, China's import of iron ore in January decreased 11.2 percent on year to 32.65 million tons, which also represented drop of 5.4 percent on month. Due the Spring Festival holidays, January only had 17 working days this year, six days less than the previous month. Based on daily volume, the average daily import of iron ore was 1.92 million tons in January, jumping 28 percent over the average daily import in December last year. While the iron ore import made month on month rise, the price of iron ore and sea freight were also on the rise, signaling a warming up of the overall iron ore market. According to the latest monitoring result published by the Ministry of Commerce, the January's average price of iron ore on domestic market rose 1.7 percent on month, while the sea freight also rebounds with the BDI index rose to 1974 points on February 10, surging 200 percent over the lowest point in December. Although there are signs of recovery of the iron ore market, the rebound pace for the future market is not big, said an expert. Statistics show that China's total output of raw ore exceeded 800 million tons in 2008, reaching a record high. Furthermore, the iron ore in stocks of the country's 19 major ports amounted to 60.078 million tons, still keeping at a high level.