The Increase In Prices Last Week Came As China’s Central Bank On Jan. 24 Announced A Deep Cut In The Amount Of Cash Banks Are Required To Hold In Reserves, A Move Aimed At Boosting Lending To Fund Property And Infrastructure Development.
Iron ore is having a strong start to the year, with rising prices and robust imports by China, sparked by optimism the world’s largest buyer of the steel raw material is adding enough stimulus to boost demand. The optimism in the past week has consigned China’s soft steel production data for December to memory, with both sentiment and fundamentals supporting the iron ore market.
Iron ore contracts traded in Singapore SZZFc1 ended at $135.31 a metric ton on Jan. 26, posting a weekly increase after declining for the two previous weeks. The contract is also 1% higher than the low so far in 2024 of $133.99 a ton, and prices have been in a broad uptrend since August last year, when they hit a closing low of $103.21 on Aug. 3.The gains have mirrored China’s main domestic price benchmark, the futures contract on the Dalian Commodity Exchange DCIOcv1, which ended at 988 yuan ($137.68) a ton on Jan. 26.