China to enhance iron ore supervision at ports in second intervention this week

China’s state planner said on Friday it would strengthen the supervision of iron ore at ports and guard against hoarding and speculation in order to maintain an orderly market, its second move this week aimed at curbing a price rally.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said it had recently held a meeting with major ports, to understand portside iron ore inventory and storage fees at yards.

The most-traded January iron ore contract on China’s Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) dropped 0.41% to 973 yuan a metric ton at 1337 GMT while benchmark December iron ore on the Singapore Exchange fell 0.44%.

The NDRC’s latest move comes after it said on Thursday it would further tighten supervision of spot and futures markets in response to a “continuous and rapid” rise in prices of the key steelmaking ingredient, leading to a brief price fall.

Iron ore futures, however, were set for their fifth weekly gain on Friday as optimism over government support for the property sector in top consumer China outweighed the latest intervention from authorities.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Twinnie Siu in Hong Kong, Ethan Wang and Amy Lv in Beijing; Editing by Christina Fincher and Mark Potter)