On July 22, China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) published new operational data for domestic industries with high energy consumption, while also stating that domestic steel prices dropped slightly in June and that profits of the Chinese steel industry increased strongly in the first half of the current year.
Accordingly, in the first five months of 2010, the aggregate profits of the Chinese steel industry were RMB 107.5 billion ($15.86 billion), which is up 6.3 times year on year, of which profits from the mining and dressing of ferrous metals were RMB 21 billion ($3.1 billion) and profits from the smelting and rolling of ferrous metals amounted to RMB 66.1 billion ($9.75 billion).
Meanwhile, steel prices dropped slightly. In June, the average prices in China of 6.5 mm high speed wire rod, 20 mm hot rolled plate and 1.0 mm cold rolled plate were RMB 4,036/mt ($595.20/mt), RMB 4,381/mt ($646.17/mt) and RMB 5,416/mt ($798.80/mt), down RMB 310/mt ($45.72/mt), RMB 326/mt ($48.08/mt) and RMB 503/mt ($74.19/mt) month on month respectively.
According to the NDRC data, in the first half of the current year national crude steel output amounted to 323.17 million mt, up 21.1 percent year on year, finished steel output same to 398.68 million mt, up 26.1 percent, national coke output reached 192.87 million mt, up 21.4 percent, ferroalloy output was 12.09 million mt, up 27.2 percent, the country's iron ore fines import volume was 309.28 million mt, up 4.1 percent, coke exports reached 1.4 million mt, up 6.1 times year on year. For the period in question, China's finished steel exports amounted to 23.58 million mt, up 150 percent year on year, while finished steel imports amounted to 8.44 million mt, up 3.8 percent over the same period.