WEEKLY SUMMARY: China's steel-making raw mat prices strengthen after holiday

With market trading picking up after China's National Day holiday over October 1-8, the prices for imported iron ore in the country showed upward trends. As for metallurgical coke, its prices also strengthened following the landing of a coke price hike proposed by coke firms.

On the other hand, rising raw material costs, plus weakening steel prices, have squeezed profit margins for Chinese blast furnace (BF) steel producers, prompting some to slightly scale back their production. The capacity utilization rate among the 247 BF steelmakers under Mysteel's regular tracking averaged 90.5% during October 1-9,