Crisis leads to plummeting iron prices. - The slowdown in the world economy is now affecting the mining industry. Pre-negotiations between the mining groups and their customers held at the beginning of this month in Qingdao (China) reveal that iron ore (a raw material crucial for making steel) prices could fall by 10-20% next year, following an 85% jump this year. If this is borne out, the fall could provide some oxygen to steel manufacturers and their main customers such as car manufacturers and the construction industry, whose costs have soared in recent years. Iron ore prices increased by more than seven times over the last five years, with the most recent fall going back to 2002 (-2.4%) in the wake of the attacks on 11 September 2001. According to World Steel Dynamics, a specialist information service, world steel demand is expected to fall by 5% in 2009. The fall this year is expected to be around -3%. According to one of its analysists, “the steel industry will have to tackle significant overcapacity in less than two years' time”. The world steel industry has had to cut back output by around 20% compared to their 2007 volume. This has led to a drop in prices for iron ore and coal slag of 30% and 50% respectively. More specifically, Chinese steel production is expected to fall by 20% in the final quarter and in annual terms. Indian iron ore exports to China, the main world steel product producer, plummeted from 8 million tonnes in October 2007 to 1.5 million last year. Cash prices for iron ore on the internal Chinese market have collapsed since September from $100 a tonne to a little under $80 today. (I.L./transl.rh)