Iron ore import and demand see balance in China
The spot price of iron ore began to rebound strongly in China as medium and small scale steel mills enriched their raw material inventories with recent purchases. China's iron ore imports in July 2005 increased 25.4% year on year to reach 20.15 million tons. For the first seven months of the year, the country's total ore imports reached 151.71 million tons, up 28.7 percent year on year. Iron ore imports to China started to fall after the macro-economic control policies of the government began taking effect in March. Following the macro-economic control policies, the prices of steel fell into a dropping trend. Many mills started to cut their production in order to balance the prices. Thus, their iron ore purchases dropped, pulling the spot price of imported iron ore down. The inventories were also very high due to blind imports, but they began to decrease in the beginning of July. The total inventory of iron ore in China fell by three million tons during the month of July to end at 32 million tons. The latest iron ore inventories at major ports are estimated at 7.6 million tons for Qingdao, 3.4 million tons for Rizhao and 2.5 million tons for Tianjin.