The price of iron ore rose to $US56 a tonne as Beijing announced a series of measures investors will hope help settle the country’s jittery sharemarkets.

At the end of the latest session, benchmark iron ore for immediate delivery to the port of Tianjin in China was trading at $US56.00 a tonne, up from $US55.00 a tonne in the prior session.

European markets were relatively muted with Wall Street closed for Labor Day weekend. But a series of announcements from Beijing will give commodity traders with an interest in the steelmaking ingredient something to think about.

Iron ore gained despite China lowering its GDP growth figure for last year by 0.1 percentage points to 7.3 per cent.

Beijing also announced that tax exemptions would be granted to shareholders holding stock for more than a year and approval has been granted to a five-year plan to modernise large state institutions with mergers and initial public offerings.

China is set to soon release its next batch of trade data. Economists expect exports to fall at an annualised rate of 5 per cent for August, while imports are tipped to dip by 6 per cent.

On Thursday, inflation data is due with the China's monthly batch of economic data to follow on Sunday.