In the January-March period this year, China’s hot rolled coil (HRC) production amounted to 49.144 million mt, up 9.7 percent year on year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
In the given period, China’s cold rolled coil (CRC) production came to 8.412 million mt, down 12.8 percent year on year.
In March alone, China’s HRC and CRC production totaled 17.355 million mt and 3.476 million mt, up 6.5 percent and down 7.0 percent, year on year, respectively.
HRC prices in the Chinese domestic market have moved on an overall uptrend till mid-March amid the improving demand from downstream users. However, HRC prices have moved down since March 15 amid China’s controlling measures to curb the rapid increases in iron ore prices and decreasing trend in HRC futures prices. Following price declines since mid-March, till late April, Chinese HRC producers started to plan production reduction, aiming to bolster prices.