In 2023, China’s outputs of pig iron, crude steel and finished steel amounted to 871.01 million mt, 1019.08 million mt and 1362.68 million mt, increasing by 0.7 percent, remaining stable and increasing by 5.2 percent year on year, respectively, as announced by China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on December 17. Most market sources have been expecting this, as the government was targeting no increase in output in 2023. Even flat steel production indicated an improvement from a decline by three percent in 2021 and by 1.7 percent in 2022. “In fact, there was rebound in production in 2023, just look at finished steel, and crude steel [output] was adjusted due to the government’s requests,” a Chinese trader said.
In December last year, China’s outputs of pig iron, crude steel and finished steel totaled 60.87 million mt, 67.44 million mt and 108.5 million mt, decreasing by 11.8 percent and 14.9 percent, and up 1.5 percent year on year. Moreover, taking into account some short-term production curbs due to environmental reasons in December, on month-on-month basis pig iron and crude steel outputs declined by 6.1 percent and 11.4 percent, while the drop in finished steel production was much less, by 1.8 percent month on month.
In 2023, the Chinese government did not implement severe winter production cuts and let the market develop independently. Even though in some months Chinese mills were facing losses, including in December 2023, in general high production levels were supported by strong exports, which reached the highest for the year since 2016, totaling 90.3 million mt. At the same time, even though demand in the construction steel industry in China softened, an increase in the automotive, shipbuilding and energy industries offset the real estate slowdown. Next year, China’s crude steel production is expected to stay at a similar level owing some gradual improvement expected in construction steel consumption and continuing high volumes of exports.