Rio Tinto announced the negotiation of quarterlyly price for iron ores with clients on its official website on April 9.

The announcement means, Rio Tinto, with Australian Broken Hill Proprietary Billiton Ltd. (BHP) and Vale of Brazil, the three international ore giants, will form a consistent pricing system.

Though the action that the three intend for a more flexible pricing system puts an end to the yearly pricing routine, none of them clarify the specific enterprises which will accept the new pricing rules.

While Fortescue Metals Group (FMG), the third largest iron ore producer and China ’s fourth ore provider will not follow suit. Instead, it chooses direct price-setting with clients and direct supply to them by making production and sales plans according to clients ’ demands.

As the biggest client of these international ore providers, Chinese iron and steel industry still prefer the traditional yearly pricing system, given higher iron ore prices for iron and steel enterprises during the ecocomic recovery.

With the new pricing regime starting on April 1, BHP gets over $130 a ton for its ore under April-June contracts based on the average January-March average spot price , more than twice last year's fixed price.

The price over the following three months will be determined by the indexed, or averaged, spot price between April and June.

Statistics from General Administration of Customs showed that in March the national import of iron ore and its average price witnessed a 13.3 percent and 25.9 percent year-on-year increase and 19.5 percent and 5.8 percent month-on-month increase respectively.