China’s export volumes of steel bars dropped by 19.8 percent year on year to 720,000 mt in October, according to the Chinese customs authorities. Although the pace of decline was down 12.3 percentage points from September, the decrease still indicates the lack of popularity of Chinese bars in Southeast Asia, which has been the major destination for Chinese exports. In October, China’s exports of angles/channels totaled 270,000 mt, down 1.5 percent year on year, 4.3 percentage points slower than the decrease in September.
Wire rod was the only steel product among the major ones for which an increase in steel export volume was observed in October. Wire rod sales abroad amounted to 160,000 mt in October, up 8.2 percent year on year, 5.8 percentage points faster than the increase rate recorded in September. Since competition in this segment is less severe than in other markets and as Malaysia offers the only wire rod import alternative to Southeast Asian customers, producers from China managed to keep their wire rod sales volumes to the region stable.
In the January-October period this year, China’s export volumes of steel bars and angles/channels dropped by 25.2 percent and 4.9 percent year on year to 8.45 million mt and 2.80 million mt, respectively. Chinese steel wire rod export sales amounted to 1.72 million mt, down only 0.4 percent year on year, 0.9 percentage points slower than the decline rate recorded for the January-September period this year.