A senior official at the UAE Ministry of Economy said that the government will investigate the more than 60 percent increase in steel prices since the beginning of the year, Gulf News reported. The official, who described the increase as unjustified, affirmed that the ministry is always keen to create equilibrium in the market between traders and consumers and will tackle the steel prices issue very soon. The ministry will contact and meet steel factories in the UAE to investigate the issue of the high prices and will also monitor the import transactions of the previous month in order to check if there are any manipulation attempts in the market, he added. The global downturn had forced the price of iron ore, the raw material used to make steel products, to fall by about 50 percent. The UAE imported $9.55 billion worth of iron and steel in 2009, down from $10.97 billion the year before, while exports in 2009 reached $793 million, down from $898 million in 2008, according to Euro-Monitor research.
