goods with a high concentration of Chinese steel, a national producer group said Tuesday.

Amid global steelmaking overcapacity, the weakness of China's yuan and the strength of Brazil's real is an attractive combination helping steel imports surge, particularly from China, Marco Polo de Mello Lopes, chief executive of the Brazil Steel Institute, said at the Coaltrans Brazil conference in Rio de Janeiro.

"There were 4.2 million mt in indirect imports of steel in 2010 of materials of a high steel content such as autoparts and together with finished steels this totals around 10 million mt," Mello Lopes said. "This is the capacity of over two steel mills, or even the largest group in Brazil, so we can see how dramatic this situation was in 2010."

Usiminas is Brazil's biggest producer with around 9 million mt of crude steel capacity over two sites in Belo Horizonte and Sao Paulo states.