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Ferrous market is broadly on the downtrend
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NDRC met on Friday after rapid rises in iron ore prices
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Tangshan undergoing another round of production controls
(Updates prices and adds bullets)
BEIJING, March 6 (Reuters) - Dalian and Singapore iron
ore futures weakened on Monday after China's state planner said
last week it had sought expert advice on policy measures to deal
with the recent rapid rise in prices of the raw material.
The most-traded May iron ore futures contract on China's
Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) ended daytime trading
2.13% lower at 897 yuan ($129.70) a tonne.
Meanwhile, on the Singapore Exchange, the benchmark April
iron ore contract traded down 1.23% at $123.85 a tonne
as of 0726 GMT.
The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said
late on Friday that its price monitoring unit had met with
experts who said rising prices were driven by speculation and
suggested authorities should strengthen market supervision.
They also advised "cracking down" on the spread of
misleading pricing information, hoarding and speculation,
according to a post on the NDRC's official WeChat account.
"Some market participants with long positions liquidated
their positions today to lock profits because of concerns that
prices may face continued downward pressure following the news
from NDRC", said Huang Jing, an iron ore trader from Shanghai
Yongjiu, a domestic trading agency.
Tangshan, China's top steelmaking hub, said on Saturday that
it would start another round of level 2 emergency response from
March 4 to handle the forecast heavy air pollution, marking the
second time in a fortnight it has implemented such measures.
Some local steel producers have been impacted by the move,
consultancy Mysteel said in a report, without giving details.
Emergency actions typically require steel plants to curb
production.
Other steelmaking ingredients - coking coal and coke - as
well as downstream steel products, also registered losses.
Coking coal slid 1.12% and coke fell 0.9%.
Rebar on the Shanghai Futures Exchange lost 0.92%
to 4,210 yuan a tonne, hot-rolled coil declined 0.53%,
wire rod fell 1.29%. Stainless steel inched
up 0.52%.
China's decision to set a modest 5% economic growth target
for 2023, revealed at Sunday's parliament opening, may also have
knocked some of the optimism in commodity markets.
The lower-than-expected target means that macroeconomic
stimulus policies this year may not be as strong as previously
expected, analysts at Citic Futures said in a note.
($1 = 6.9158 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Amy Lv and Dominique Patton in Beijing; Editing by Varun H K and Savio D'Souza)
