According to China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), in April this year China's overall output of crude steel increased by 2.6 percent year on year, with the growth rate down 4.5 percentage points as compared with April 2011. In the same month, China's finished steel output increased by 7.9 percent year on year, with the growth rate down 0.4 percentage points year on year. Meanwhile, the domestic outputs of coke and ferroalloy increased by 7.3 percent and 11.9 percent year on year, but with drops in growth rate of 4.5 percentage points and 5.6 percentage points year on year, respectively. In April, China's exports of finished steel totaled 4.67 million mt, down 360,000 mt month on month, while imports of finished steel totaled 1.13 million mt, down 140,000 mt month on month.
In January-April, China's output of crude steel totaled 233.99 million mt, up 1.9 percent year on year, with the increase rate down 6.4 percentage points year on year. The output of finished steel in the first four months totaled 302.45 million mt, up 6.2 percent year on year but down 6.4 percentage points in terms of growth rate. Domestic coke output for the period totaled 144.55 million mt, up 6.4 percent year on year, with a drop of 5.6 percentage points in the increase rate. China's output of ferroalloy in the given period totaled 9.21 million mt, up 10.9 percent year on year, with the growth rate down 7.8 percentage points year on year. Meanwhile, in the first four months, China exported 16.81 million mt of finished steel, up 10.2 percent year on year. On the other hand, it imported 130,000 mt of steel billet and 4.54 million mt of finished steel, down by 39.8 percent and 18.3 percent year on year.