BAOSTEEL Group Corp expects to raise crude steel output by nearly 5 percent this year to produce more high quality products to help China replace imports, Chairman Xu Lejiang said yesterday.

China's top mill will produce 30 million tons of crude steel this year, Xu said. Baosteel produced 28.58 million tons in 2007, a jump of more than 9 percent from a year earlier.

"Although our production only accounts for less than 5 percent of the national total, Baosteel is producing more high-quality, top-grade products to replace imports," Xu said at the 3rd Baosteel Biennial Academic Conference.

Around 700 delegates working in the steel industry from home and abroad are participating in the three-day conference, which started yesterday, discussing the latest development and future trend in steel products, manufacturing technologies and equipment.

As a leader in the domestic steel industry in terms of size, Shanghai-based Baosteel also is viewed as a leader in technological expertise. For example, the company started a Corex iron smelting plant which features low emission and uses less raw material inputs.

Meanwhile, the China Iron and Steel Association said Chinese mills won't buy iron ore from Vale in the near term after the Brazilian miner dropped a bombshell by making a request for higher prices halfway through annual contracts which have been already agreed.

Instead, some China steel companies including Baosteel and Wuhan Iron & Steel Co earlier this week signed deals with domestic miners for ore to replace Brazilian imports, Shan Shanghua, executive secretary-general said in the China Metallurgical News, a publication run by the association.

Domestic supplies are able to meet the gap in terms of quality and quantity, Shan said, amid a softening steel market.