In the first eight months of the current year, China’s apparent crude steel consumption moved up by 7.8 percent to 578.2 million mt, while the country’s crude steel output increased by 5.8 percent to 617.4 million mt, both year on year, according to the China report from the World Steel Association (worldsteel).
In the given period, China’s semi-finished and finished steel product imports increased by 6.4 percent to 9.6 million mt and its semi-finished and finished steel exports showed a decrease of 13.1 percent to 47.2 million mt, both on year-on-year basis.
Meanwhile, in the first eight months of this year, China’s iron ore imports decreased by 0.5 percent to 710 million mt, compared to the same period of 2017.