The China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) called upon licensed iron ore importers to boycott top global miners in protest of their monopoly in the iron ore market, according to a Friday report by the China Business News.

Shan Shanghua, director of the CISA, asked steel makers and iron ore traders not to buy from Vale, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton in the next two months, saying the miners' monopoly had made the annual ore price negotiations tough for China, according to the report.

The annual contract iron ore price negotiation between China and top miners, scheduled to end April 1, saw no result, as the miners want the 2010 price to be doubled from the previous year and want to turn the annual contract into a seasonal one.

Shan said that the country's iron ore stock was enough to keep steel mills operating for two months.

In a closed-door meeting Friday, the CISA also talked with the China Chamber of Commerce of Metals, Minerals and Chemicals Importers and Exporters (CCCMC), the regulator of the licensed iron ore traders, about cutting the number of traders, according to a report by the China Securities Journal. Iron ore traders that imported less than 1 million tons in 2009 will be stripped of their licenses, the journal's report said.

Most small steel mills and iron ore traders have no iron ore import license, and were blamed by the CISA for the country's failure in last year's iron ore negotiations, as some reached agreements with global miners earlier than the CISA, the negotiating body for all Chinese steel makers.

Large steel makers sell iron ore to small mills at a much higher price than the contract rate reached with miners, forc-ing the small mills to talk to miners themselves, said Guo Cunmin, a Hainan Province-based industry insider.