China's Baoshan Iron & Steel Company (
Baosteel) and
Japan's JFE Steel Corporation (JFE) expect lower
iron ore prices in 2006.
According to Xu Lejiang, the president of
China's largest steelmaker
Baosteel, major global
iron ore suppliers based in
Brazil and
Australia should lower their
iron ore contract prices next year because steel prices keep falling.
Meanwhile, according to Hajime Bada, the president of
Japan's second largest steel producer JFE, the price of both
iron ore and
coking coal will fall in 2006.
The global
iron ore suppliers will initiate price talks for 2006 contracts with their Chinese and Japanese customers in October.
Due to high fixed-contract prices of global steelmakers,
China increased its
iron ore imports from
India over spot market prices rapidly in the first eight months.