China produced 158.01Mt of crude steel in the Jan-Mar period, up 24.52% over the same period last year. The average daily output, at approximately 1.76Mt, pointed to a yearly volume of 641Mt.
Compared with the 2009 daily average at approximately 1.56Mt, the Q1 average increased by 12.86%.
CISA believes that local steel industry was somewhat in an over-supply in Q1, but it attributed the expansion to the country’s economic growth. China reported a 11.9% GDP growth in the first quarter, with the increase of fixed-assets investment at 25.6%, increase of sale of consumer goods at 17.9% and that of export at 28.7%.
Of total steel output CR sheet amounted to 4.69Mt, up 34.81%, that of CR wide strip was 7.14Mt, up 66.6%, that of plated sheet was 6.34Mt, up 58.9%, that of coated sheet was 1.11Mt, up 36.7%, and that of electrical sheet was 1.35Mt, up 47.8%. In the first quarter of last year, output of all these products declined on a yearly basis.
In addition, three-month production of rebar combined to 30.15Mt, up 14.8%, with the increase down 6.2% over that for a year earlier. And wire output totaled 24.90Mt, up 22.4%, with the increase up 14.2%.
With steel imports up 4.22% to 4.53Mt and export up markedly by 69.75% to 9.28Mt, the country’s net export came to 4.75Mt in the three months, or 4.24 times the volume for a year-earlier period.
Source: China Metals e-mail infochn@public.bta.net.cn
