China's rapidly growing national economy, especially the booming metallurgical industry, brought about over one quarter increase of its iron ore import, said an official with the Ministry of Communications in Qingdao, eastern Shandong Province Tuesday.

From January to September, China imported about 250 million tons of iron ore, the first time that the nation's iron ore import has surpassed 200 million tons and growing by 25.76 percent on a year-on-year basis, said Fu Jinxiu, vice director of the ministry's water carriage department's comprehensive transportation section.

The official said, at an ongoing international symposium on the iron raw material, that currently China has eight harbors which can hold more than ten million tons of iron ore.

About 40 million tons of iron ore are stored at China's harbors every day, thanks to the running of a number of specialized harbors, Fu said.

During the past five years, China built 670 specialized harbors for containers, crude oil and iron ore. By the end of 2005, the thruput of all China's harbors reached 2.89 billion tons.

The symposium was regarded by many insiders as a warming up of the international iron ore price negotiation, which attract great attention of the world iron and steel industry.

More than 40 Chinese iron and steel companies including Shanghai-based Baosteel as well as the world top three iron ore providers Australian BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto and Brazilian Vale do Rio Doce attended the symposium.