Imported iron ore stockpiles at 16-month high( Xinhua) 15:48, February 25, 2014 BEIJING, Feb. 25 -- Stockpiles of imported iron ore at 25 major Chinese ports surged lastweek to the highest level in 16 months due to flagging demand, according to new datareleased Tuesday.
At the end of the Feb. 18 to Feb. 24 period, inventories of imported iron ore exceeded 100million tonnes for the first time since October 2012, reaching 100.34 million tonnes, up0.41 percent from a week earlier, according to a Xinhua-China Iron Ore Index report.
This is the second week in a row for imported iron ore stockpiles to surge.
The index, compiled through research and analysis of 25 sea ports, showed that the priceindex for iron ore imports with a 62-percent purity grade dropped 2 points from theprevious week to 120. The index for imports with 58-percent purity dropped 2 points to108.
The report said prices for imported iron ore rose in the beginning of the week amid risingsteel billet prices, but prices dropped after the middle of the week because of weak marketdemand.
It forecast that there will be small fluctuations in imported iron ore prices next week andflagging demand will continue in the short term.
（Editor：WangXin、Gao Yinan） Related reading
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