[Ferro-Alloys.com]Brazil’s Vale reported a 38 per cent increase in net profit last year compared with a year earlier as higher iron ore prices bolstered the world’s biggest producer of the mineral. Vale reported net profit of $5.51bn in 2017 on net operating revenue of $33.97bn, which was up 23.6 per cent compared with the year before. “The increase in sales revenues was mainly due to higher realised prices of ferrous minerals,” Vale said. The company said the dominance of China in its revenues dropped slightly during the year and predicted growth in the world’s second-biggest economy would become “more moderate” with the softening of its property sector. It said south-east Asia was emerging as a promising market because it had a steel production deficit and lower steel consumption per capita. “Revenues by destination: higher geographical diversification, with lower share of revenues from China, 41 per cent in 2017 versus 46 per cent in 2016, and higher contribution from Asia ex-China and South America, 18 per cent and 12 per cent in 2017 versus 15 per cent and 9 per cent in 2016, respectively,” the company said. The company said net debt had fallen to $18.14bn by end-December from $25.04bn a year earlier with assets sales set to reduce this further this year.

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• [Editor:Jiang Li Juan ]