In the January-April period this year, China produced 277.99 million mt of pig iron and 319.46 million mt of crude steel, both up 1.3 percent year on year, as announced by China's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on May 15. Finished steel production in China indicated a year-on-year drop of 0.2 percent to 374.39 million mt in the January-April period.
In April alone, China produced 72.02 million mt of pig iron, down 1.2 percent year on year and rising by 7.54 percent month on month, as well as 85.03 million mt of crude steel and 107.01 million mt of finished steel, up 0.2 percent and 3.6 percent, respectively, year on year, and increasing by 7.66 percent and 8.22 percent month on month, against a backdrop of better demand from downstream users.