On November 11, the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) announced that in October this year China's Ministry of Commerce issued iron ore import licenses for a total of 85.746 million mt, valued at $10.911 billion. Meanwhile, in the first 10 months this year, iron ore import licenses were issued for a total of 939.530 million mt, valued at $117.589 billion.
In October alone, the iron ore import licenses issued by China for Australian and Brazilian iron ore amounted to 47.4297 million mt and 13.442 million mt respectively, down 15.68 percent and 42.26 percent month on month. Licenses issued for South African and Indonesian iron ore in the given month amounted to 4.5929 million mt and 2.3754 million mt, up 4.31 percent and down 19.48 pecent month on month.