China’s Iron Ore Boom

China’s emergence as the world’s second largest economy has been driven by more than four decades of explosive growth. To support this expansion, China has required massive expansion in its steel production capacity, which is highly correlated to its demand for iron ore imports. The scale and pace of China’s iron ore demand shock has pushed the global iron ore market into a historical adjustment.

Using economic frameworks, this book brings to bare new data and field observations throughout Asia and Africa to investigate how the rapid growth in China’s iron ore demand has affected the organisation and structure of the global iron ore market. The research provides several important contributions to the extant literature including analysis of whether the Big Three Asian market iron ore exporters coordinated to sustain the profits arising from the price boom; estimating the financial impact of the Chinese state’s intervention in iron price negotiations; and addressing the concerns arising from the Chinese state’s provision of cheap financial support for its companies’ iron ore procurement.

Offering unique insights into China’s economic rise and the structure of the iron ore market, this book will be relevant to students and scholars of resource economics, and the Australian and Chinese economies.