(Yicai Global) June 8 -- Brazil’s mining giant Vale is highly confident in the prospects of China’s post-Covid-19 recovery, and its supply to the country will basically be the same as or even more than last year’s.

Rio de Janeiro-based Vale exported 190 million tons of iron ore and pellets last year to China, which has resumed steel production after the country has put the pandemic behind it within a short time, and this has raised the nation’s need for iron ore, Marcello Spinelli, the firm’s executive director for ferrous minerals, said in a recent interview with the Xinhua News Agency. China’s steel industry is strongly reviving, data show.

Recovery from the pandemic varies from one country to another and the iron ore supply will thus be redistributed, he noted. For example, European steel plants have cut their output because of the virus, so all major iron ore producers including Vale will divert more to China, he said.

Vale knows clearly the pandemic is complicated and will not end soon. It will try its best to devise a reasonable output guide, Spinelli stated, adding the firm has included the potential yield loss in its adjusted output guide because the combat against the pestilence is very likely to go on for a long time.

The coronavirus’ impact on the company is controllable, and the firm has not changed its previously released iron ore output guide of between 310 million to 330 million tons for this year, he stressed.

Editor: Ben Armour