Fastmarkets sources continued to insist that prices were in parity, as rare as the phenomenon is.

“As a nation are very clear and very respectful of our treaties and our agreements,” Hernando said.

The sites receiving ResponsibleSteel certification were POSCO’s Pohang and Gwangyang Steelworks in South Korea and Tata Steel’s Jamshedpur site in India.

The problem is that there are more than 13m tons of HRC capacity coming online or planned to come online in the next three years.

These include changes to the Emissions Trading System (ETS) and a new levy on imports under the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) to prevent carbon leakage.

Most of the capital goods in China posted lower prices in late October compared with mid-October, official data showed Friday.

The province's total import and export value from January to September hit 260.91 billion yuan ($35.96 billion), up 16.4 percent year-on-year.

Since its first iron ore shipment to China in 1973, Rio Tinto has supplied China with more than 3.5 billion tons of high-quality iron ore.