Thailand’s domestic steel consumption is expected to decrease to 15-16 million mt in the current year from 17-18 million mt last year, due to slower economic activity amid the coronavirus outbreak and the drought in the country, according to local media.
Pravit Horungruang, a committee member of the Standard Long Steel Product Trade Association, said that lower confidence in the economic outlook is making people more cautious about spending and the delay of the government's infrastructure investment projects in the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) has not helped the private sector construction industry to pick up.
The association official also pointed out that the domestic and global economic slowdown has negatively affected the automotive industry which uses specialty steel and steel parts that are higher quality products. The domestic automotive industry is expected to shrink by as much as 30 percent in 2020 amid weak purchasing power and a slowing economy. "This is the hardest year for the domestic steel industry for some time," said Mr. Pravit.
According to the Thai Iron and Steel Industry Club, the automotive sector including agriculture machinery in Thailand will use 40 percent or 7.6 million mt of total production capacity of premium and commodity steel for car manufacturing, as reported by the Bangkok Post.