Steel production in China fell by 6.4% in July

In July 2022 China’s steel production fell by 6.4% y-o-y. The results were significantly affected by weak demand in the real estate sector. Reuters writes about it.

According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics, China produced 81.4 million tons of steel in July, compared to 90.7 million tons in June.

As GMK Center reported earlier, in July, China Steel Business’ Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) fell even further to 33 points, down 3.2 percentage points (pp) from June. In June, the PMI in China’s steel industry fell by 4.6 pp. in comparison with the previous month – up to 36.2 points. This is the lowest value since the beginning of the calculation of this index – from November 2018.

Also, Chinese plants reduced the steel production by 6.5% compared to the same period in 2021, to 526.9 thousand tons. The output of pig iron during this period decreased by 4.7% to 438.9 million tons. The production of finished rolled steel for the first half of the year reached 667, 1 million tons, decreasing by 4.6% compared to January-June 2021.

As GMK Center wrote before, the decline of iron&steel production continues on almost all major regional markets in the world. Steelmakers around the world are shutting down capacity due to falling demand.