According to the latest statistics released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on January 7, the two-way trade volume between China and Australia will increase to 208 + billion in 2020, much higher than the 207.7 billion in the same period in 2019. The trade links between the two countries remain close.According to the statistics, Australia's exports to China increased by nearly 22% during the month, leaving a trade surplus with China of more than $4 billion.The country's total trade surplus for the month was about $6.9 billion.

In other words, China's trade surplus accounted for as much as 60% of the country's global trade surplus in that month.A surplus means that Australia exports more than it imports -- in other words, it makes more money.According to the Bureau of Statistics, the export volume of Australia to China increased by 7% in 2020, and the export documents rose by 9%, leading to the total export volume increased by 15%.That's an increase of $1.8 billion.Exports have soared, mainly from iron ore, 60 per cent of which is exported to our country.

Since 2015, China's dependence on foreign iron ore has exceeded 80% for six consecutive years, and its import volume has remained above 1 billion tons for five consecutive years.The bulk of iron ore comes from Australia and Brazil, which together account for more than 80% of imports.

At present, the four international mining giants supply nearly 70% of the total volume of global iron ore trade.Under the highly monopolistic market pattern, the weakness of China's steel industry is subject to others, but also give speculators the opportunity to stir up trouble.

Looking back to 2020, facing the impact of Covid-19 epidemic, China's economy took the lead in recovery and steel production and sales boomed.China's crude steel output rose to 1.053 billion tons, up 5.2% year on year and a record high.Imported iron ore increases in volume and price.In 2020, the import of iron ore was 1.17 billion tons, up 9.5% year on year, and the import value was 118.94 billion US dollars.The average price was $101.7 / ton, up 7.3% year on year, reaching an all-time high of $176.9 / ton on December 21, far exceeding industry expectations.

In the first 11 months of 2020, the investment in fixed assets completed by the ferrous metal mining and dressing industry decreased by 9.9% year-on-year.Mine environmental protection technology upgrading and resource succession are not ideal, coupled with the obvious lack of Chinese enterprises' control over overseas iron ore, so long-term strategic planning and long-term persistence are also needed in the later stage.

Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Huang Libin said that in order to promote the reduction of steel production, it is strictly prohibited to increase steel production capacity, and resolutely compress steel production capacity. The reduction of production is bound to play a certain role in inhibiting the rise of ore, and the change of the international situation will also bring a series of uncertainties to the ore.

Then we look from the domestic steel market, the decline in steel profits has led to the loss of many steel mills, steel enterprises on the production attitude has changed, increase the maintenance efforts, from the previous to maintain production efficiency to reduce production costs priority.In news, yesterday, the China Iron and Steel Association reiterated the importance of "ensuring that steel production in 2021 fell year-on-year" and "steel industry carbon peak and carbon neutral" target.Short time the news on the mining market impact.From the port offer, near the Spring Festival, the enthusiasm of the miners' offer is not high, the bargaining space of some varieties is enlarged, and the fluidity of the powder is not as good as that of the previous period. Some miners intend to dump the goods before the Spring Festival.At present, steel mill replenishment is concentrated in Jiangnei area. Traders offer steel mills on their own initiative, changing the previous state of "no concession".From the price difference level, due to narrow profit margins, high iron ore upward space is limited, indirect explanation of high coke support has weakened.In terms of block ore, low inventory and sintering limit guarantee the premium of shipping block ore, and even some buyers do not accept the goods assembled by powder block.The high premium and high demand are basically on the PB block Newman block. The feedback from the steel mill is that if the premium continues to rise, it may have to turn to some cheap Australian block resources.Domestic mines, powder resources are still tight, the price is firm, the number of steel enterprises reduced in maintenance is limited, the steel enterprises in Jiangnan basically completed the overhaul in December, Hebei, Shanxi steel enterprises are also more than no overhaul plan.However, near the Spring Festival large-scale replenishment of the basic completion of the late market transaction is limited.