Minmetals Chamber of Commerce President: This year's iron ore imports are expected to increase by 6

Xu Xu, president of the China Minmetals Chemicals Import & Export Chamber of Commerce, said on March 17 that China’s iron ore imports this year are expected to increase about 6% year-on-year.

He said that the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development has raised the target for affordable housing construction in 2011 to 10 million units, an increase of 72.4% year-on-year. Taking into account the economic development guidelines for housing and expanding consumption, the total crude steel demand in the domestic market is expected to increase by 40 million to 50 million tons compared with 2010.

He said that China's steel production in 2011 is estimated to reach more than 670 million tons. At the same time, based on the basic judgment on the continuous increase in production capacity and output of the entire steel industry this year, the demand for iron ore will naturally increase. It is predicted that China's iron ore imports this year will increase by 40 million tons from last year, about 6%.

According to the Customs’ previous data, China imported 61.863 million tons of iron ore in 2010, a year-on-year decrease of 1.4%.