China's Baosteel said on Friday it has exchanged ideas with Australia's major miner Rio Tinto （RIO.AX: Quote）（RIO.L: Quote） on how to improve iron ore pricing, as part of efforts to strengthen cooperation.
Rio Tinto's iron ore head Sam Walsh paid a visit to Baosteel Chairman Xu Lejiang on Thursday, Baosteel said in a report on its website, but it did not provide more details on the meeting.
Baosteel traditionally leads other large domestic peers in the annual iron ore price negotiation with three global iron ore miners Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton （BHP.AX: Quote）（BLT.L: Quote） and Vale （VALE5.SA: Quote）.
However, miners decided to abandon the decades-old benchmark system in favour of an index-based quarterly pricing mechanism since 2009 after failing to reach an agreement with the China Iron & Steel Association （CISA）.
The new scheme has forced Chinese steel mills to suffer volatile raw materials cost and low profitability. And analysts said China's intransigence in 2009 cost the country billions of dollars.
Medium- and large-sized steel mills saw profit growth of 2.91 percent last year, far lower from the average level for all industrial sectors, CISA said in its statement on Thursday.
Luo Bingsheng, a senior adviser to the association, also blamed miners raising prices without providing room for negotiation with Chinese steel mills, which harms the cooperation and relationship between two parties, local media reported on Wednesday.（Reuters）
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