Chinas iron ore imports and steel production — Continued growth at a slowing pace

摘要

Current estimates show that China is to import 312 million tonnes of ore in 2006. This is up just 37 million tonnes from 2005, as domestic output takes market shares away from imports and steel production slows. However, imports surged month on month, rising to 32.81 million tonnes in August, up almost a third from the 24.7 million tonnes imported in July. Given an import estimate of 312 million tonnes, import growth is estimated slow to 13.5 percent year-on-year, down from over 30 percent in 2005 and 40 percent in 2004, which was the peak year so far after the millennium. This is shown in the graph below.