After witnessing very strong growth in its steel demand in previous years, the pace of growth of Chinese apparent steel use is expected to decrease significantly this year in line with the slowdown in China's economic growth, with its GDP foreseen to rise this year by 7.8 percent, according to the IMF, down from nine percent in 2011.
Steel demand in China is expected to increase by 2.5 percent to 639.5 million mt in 2012, after 6.2 percent growth in 2011, said Jürgen Kerkhoff from the German Steel Federation (WV Stahl) on October 11 during the 46th annual meeting of the World Steel Association (worldsteel) held in New Delhi. In 2013, the Chinese government's stimulus measures are likely to moderately improve the economic situation, which has been impacted by sluggish exports amid the global economic slowdown, he stated. Accordingly, in 2013 China's apparent steel use is expected to rise by 3.1 percent, reaching 659.2 million mt, according to worldsteel.
Back in April this year, worldsteel had forecast four percent growth in Chinese steel demand for both 2012 and 2013.
The growth rates (%) in Chinese apparent steel demand in the last 10 years can be seen below:
2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 |
20.55 | 25.70 | 11.11 | 25.98 | 8.69 | 11.88 | 2.89 | 26.07 | 5.09 | 6.20 |
Source: Worldsteel