SHANGHAI/HONG KONG: Baoshan Iron & Steel Co, China's largest steelmaker, said its 2009 net profit fell about 11 percent from a year earlier as turnover declined by more than a quarter.

Baosteel, which competes with South Korea's POSCO and Japan's Nippon Steel Corp to supply the Chinese market, posted a net profit of 5.75 billion yuan ($842.3 million), down from 6.46 billion yuan a year earlier, it said in a preliminary earnings statement to the Shanghai stock exchange.

The earnings lagged a consensus forecast of 5.82 billion yuan from analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.