shanghai listing

BEIJING, Aug 19, 2009

The Anglo-Australian Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) has not made any progress in its plan to list on the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE), China Securities Journal quoted an insider as saying Thursday.
FMG has set the target of listing on China's A-share market and is now in talks with advisors for the best way to achieve this goal. Andrew Forrest, CEO of FMG, earlier said that the company intended to get a listing on the A-share market.

However, Chinese securities experts note that so far no foreign companies have ever been listed for trading on Chinese capital markets. FMG will have to overcome a lot of legal barriers to achieve successful listing on SSE, they said.

The China Iron and Steel Association has just reached an agreement with FMG on a 35.02-percent price cut for iron ore fines in the July-December period.

FMG is Australia's third largest iron ore producer. It has proven iron ore reserves of 1.25 billion tons and its total resources are 4.5 billion tons. All of its iron ore output this year (predicted at 35 million tons) will be sold to China.

China's Hunan Valin Iron and Steel Group holds a 17.5-percent stake of FMG, making it the second-largest shareholder in the Australian company.