In the first quarter of 2010, steel prices registered a continuous uptrend in China, according to the latest report issued by the country's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).
In the first three months of this year, China produced 158.01 million mt of crude steel, up 24.5 percent, and 185.75 million mt of finished steel, increasing by 28.6 percent, both compared with the first quarter of 2009. Meanwhile, China's average daily outputs of crude steel and finished steel respectively amounted to 1.76 million mt and 2.06 million mt during the first quarter of 2010. For the whole quarter, China's steel consumption totaled 168 million mt, indicating a year-on-year increase of 23 percent, 2.5 percentage points higher than the growth rate for the corresponding period of the previous year.
In the first quarter, steel prices were on average 5.4 percent higher year on year in the Chinese domestic market, mainly due to higher production costs and the recovery in market demand.