In August this year, China’s pig iron, crude steel and finished steel outputs amounted to 71.53 million mt, 83.24 million mt and 108.8 million mt, down 11.1 percent, 13.2 percent and 10.1 percent year on year, respectively, as announced by China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on September 15.
At the same time, crude steel output continued to decline month on month - down 4.09 percent compared to July, while pig iron production declined by 1.81 percent and finished steel output went down by 1.98 percent, month on month. Lower consumption and restrictions in the north of China impacted production in August.
In the January-August period this year, China produced 605.38 million mt of pig iron, up 0.6 percent year on year, with the year-on-year growth 1.7 percentage points slower than that recorded in the first seven months this year. Also, China’s crude steel and finished steel outputs totaled 733.02 million mt and 918.33 million mt in the first eight months this year, up 5.3 percent and 7.3 percent, respectively, year on year, with the year-on-year growths 2.7 percentage points and 3.2 percentage points slower than those recorded in the January-July period.