In the January-June period this year, China’s exports of steel bars totaled 10.01 million mt, up 10.8 percent year on year, while wire rod exports amounted to 1.36 mt, down 5.6 percent year on year, according to the General Administration of Customs of China (GAAC). At the same time, China’s export volumes of angles/channels came to 3.92 million mt in the given period, increasing by 5.7 percent year on year.
In June alone, China’s exports of steel bars and wire rod totaled 2.01 million mt and 250,000 mt, up 32.2 percent and 3.2 percent year on year, while up 3.1 percent and down 7.4 percent month on month, respectively, while China’s exports of angles/channels amounted to 650,000 mt, down 10.4 percent year on year and down 9.7 percent month on month.
In June, China’s exports of finished steel rose by 6.6 percent year on year, while exports of steel bars increased much faster, up 32.2 percent year on year, signaling the international market's capacity to absorb long steel products amid the demand from emerging markets including the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, while also showing Chinese steel enterprises’ growing willingness to take the initiative in exporting steel bars amid the sluggish demand in the Chinese domestic market due to the ongoing poor performance of the real estate industry.
