Iron ore prices fell on Thursday, falling below $100 per tonne for the first time in nearly three weeks, indicating investors doubt the effectiveness of China’s property support measures.
Singapore’s November iron ore futures fell 4.62% to $99.90 per tonne at 11:55 a.m. Mecca time, the lowest since September 26.
China’s Housing Minister Ni Hong said at a press conference today that Beijing will increase the value of a soft credit program to support the purchase of unfinished real estate projects from developers to 4 trillion yuan ($562 billion).
Qiao Yuanqi, deputy director of the Financial Regulatory Administration, explained that the value of loans provided to these projects has reached 2.23 trillion yuan at present.
“These Chinese measures are aimed at clearing the oversupply of housing, not encouraging new construction projects and thus demand for steel,” Zhou Mingbo, a market analyst at GF Futures, told Bloomberg.
