It is reported that facing the demand of 80% to 90% price rise that big three miners asked during this year annual iron ore benchmark talks, China steelmakers hope they could keep long-term perspectives.

Mr Deng Qilin president of the China Iron and Steel Association and also general manager of Chinese steelmaker Wuhan Iron and Steel Co said to accept irrationally high iron ore price will corner mills with their backs against a wall. He said iron ore producers should not make excessive profits but madden steelmakers with thirst.

As the largest iron ore buy in the world, China brings the constant flow of profit to iron ore suppliers all the time but still suffers from survival pressure of soaring prices.

In 2009, the 68 big and medium-sized steel mills netted CNY 55.388 billion falling 31.43%YoY. CISA statistics also showed that the 72 big-and medium-sized mills’ rate of return on sales was 7.5% in 2007, 5% in 2008 and only 2.8% last year.

Sourced from MySteel.net

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