In the January-August period of the current year, China’s import volumes of steel sheet/plate and steel pipes/hollow profiles amounted to 6.46 million mt and 210,000 mt, down 12.4 percent and 21.3 percent, 0.7 and 0.6 percentage points slower than the declining pace recorded for the January-July period this year. The production of automotive vehicles in China totaled 1.991 million units in August, down 0.5 percent year on year, but indicating an improvement following the sharp drops in the previous months. The decline in auto production was 11.4 percentage points lower than in July, contributing to the slower declining pace in steel sheet and plate imports in the first eight months of the year.
In the January-August period, China’s import volumes of steel bars and angles/channels amounted to 650,000 mt and 200,000 mt, down 11.9 percent and 17.1 percent year on year, showing an increase in the decrease rates of 0.6 percentage points and 4.0 percentage points, respectively, compared to the decrease rates recorded for the January-July period, according to the monthly import and export data issued by the Chinese customs authorities. The slowdown in the real estate market has slackened the demand for steel bars and angles/channels, resulting in the bigger decreasing rate in the first eight months of the year.
As previously reported by SteelOrbis, in the January-August period this year China imported 7.638 million mt of finished steel, decreasing by 12.8 percent year on year, 0.6 percentage points slower than the decrease rate recorded in the first seven months of the year.