by Michael Grogan
April 20th, 2015
With an economic slowdown in China and a fall in commodity prices, Australian iron ore exports have been hit hard. With the commodity being Australia's largest export and accounting for over 74 billion AUD in the years 2013-14, Chinese iron ore import prices (in $ per tonne) have fallen from approximately $120 during this period to just under a current price of $60.
While iron ore has traditionally been in high demand by China as the construction industry continued to boom during the first half of this decade, demand has faltered as construction activity has slowly been declining in China. In this context, even falling prices across the Australian iron ore industry do not seem to be enough to boost demand. While China is officially the largest producer of iron ore worldwide, over two-thirds of China's iron ore supplies have traditionally been imported from more developed markets such as Australia owing to concerns of poorer domestic quality.
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