China warns against publishing false iron ore price information

China’s state planner on Wednesday warned against fabricating iron ore prices, saying for the second time this year that it and the market regulator would study effective measures to ensure market stability amid fast rising prices this year.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and the State Administration for Market Regulation recently talked to iron ore price information providers, warning the firms to ensure accuracy of their releases, the regulator said in a statement.

“Related companies … should not fabricate or publish any false price information and should not drive up prices,” the statement said.

The NDRC and market regulator said they would strengthen market supervision and strictly crack down on any irregularities.

This was the second public warning from the state planner on iron ore this year, which said in late January that the rapidly rising iron ore prices involved speculation, as domestic inventories stood at multiyear highs.

However, prices for the key steelmaking ingredients remained bullish after the weeklong lunar new year holiday. Benchmark iron ore futures on the Dalian Commodity Exchange DCIOcv1 scaled to over a five-month high on Tuesday, sending their gains to more than 20% this year.

Yet as demand for the ingredient has gradually recovered amid rising utilisation rates at blast furnaces and on bets of better downstream demand in the first quarter, market sentiment has been dented amid concerns of regulatory controls.

The most-traded iron ore futures contract plunged as much as 5.4% in Wednesday early trade after the NDRC statement.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Min Zhang, Albee Zhang and Gabriel Crossley; Editing by Kim Coghill and Gerry Doyle)