Baoshan Iron & Steel, a listed unit of China's leading steel maker Baosteel Group, is currently in negotiations with Vale SA over fourth-quarter iron-ore prices, which are expected to fall, said Ma at an online conference on Monday.

The top three global mining giants — Vale SA, Rio Tinto,  and BHP Billiton had a combined profit last year far exceeding the profits of the entire Chinese steel industry, Ma said at the conference accompanying the release of the company's third-quarter results.

The country's 77 large- and middle-sized steel plants booked a combined net profit of 89.7 billion yuan ($14.1 billion) last year, according to the China Iron & Steel Association, less than 30% of the total net profit for the top three miners.

China is the world's largest manufacturer of steel and consumes about 50% of global iron ore. But CISA projected that the growth of China's demand for steel will slow to 2.6% a year by 2015 from the current 4.6% a year.

Policy tightening measures on the real-estate market, combined with slower growth in the auto and home-appliance sectors have dampened domestic steel demand. Weak economic growth in Europe has also aggravated pressure on iron-ore suppliers, analysts were cited as saying in a report by Beijing News. See this report at Caixin Online.