Data released by the International Iron and Steel Institute (IISI) show that global crude steel production rose 5 percent year on year to 94.7 million metric tons in January 2006. China is again the largest steel-producing country with crude steel production of 30.3 million metric tons in January, an increase of 20.7 percent from a year earlier. India produced 3.6 million metric tons of crude steel last month, up 17.8 percent a year ago. Total production in the Asia region amounted to 48.7 million metric tons, up 11.9 percent a year ago. Crude steel production in Russia remained almost unchanged at 5.4 million metric tons in January. Ukraine's crude steel production fell 1.2 percent year on year to 3.3 million metric tons last month. European member countries produced 15.8 million metric tons of crude steel last month, down 5.8 percent year on year. Germany (3.4 mmt), Italy (2.5 mmt) and France (1.8 mmt) were the largest EU producers in January. However, all three countries recorded lower production than in January 2005.
Global crude steel production (in thousands of metric tons) January December January %change 2006 2005 2005 Jan-06/05 Other Europe 2.494 2.473 2.365 5.5 EU (15) 13.719 12.927 14.682 -6.6 EU (25) 15.777 14.731 16.740 -5.8 C.I.S 9.456 10.044 9.507 -0.5 N.America 10.949 10.532 11.108 -1.4 S.America 3.742 3.878 3.639 2.8 Africa 1.538 1.450 1.430 7.6 MiddleEast 1.270 1.242 1.161 9.4 Asia 48.742 50.244 43.547 11.9 Ocenia 734 675 732 0.2 Total 61 94.704 95.268 90.230 5.0 countries