Beijing, March 15 – According to China Minmetals Corp. China will gradually cut down the amount of iron ores imported from India.

On March 1, the Indian government announced that it would impose a tariff of 300 rubies per ton on iron ores, irrespective of their quality.

“There is no greater advantage of importing iron ores from India than from Australia or Brazil nowadays,” said Liu Zhengang, the director of China Minmetal Corp India subbranch. Liu pointed out that India's unreasonable tariff policy will force China to turn to other iron ore exporters.

In 2006 alone, 74.75 million tons of iron ores were imported from India (a little more than in 2005), taking up about 23% of all the iron ores imported.

India has never signed long-term contract with China on iron ore trade, thus it can get the maximum profit possible, as the prices of its iron ores can be changed at any time according to the changes in supply and demand.

"The quality of iron ores from India is not very good, so it takes quite a lot of time and effort to purify them. Actually no iron & steel enterprises in China take India as their major supplier,”added Liu.

India's tariff policy might be the first step for it to stop iron ores export in 5 years.