The International Iron and Steel Institute (IISI) has announced that the world crude steel output for 2006 reached 1.24 billion metric tons. This is an increase of 8.8 percent on the 2005 figure. The total represents the highest level of crude steel output in history. 2006 is also the third consecutive year in which the world's crude steel output has exceeded one billion metric tons. The 2006 crude steel production figure is 165.3 percent higher than the output of ten years ago. It is also 145.7 percent above the total recorded five years ago. However, over the past ten years the most remarkable growth has been observed in China and the Asia region. In 2006, the top three steel producing countries were China, Japan and the US. Brazil has slipped from ninth to tenth place in the list of the top ten steel producing countries.
Top ten crude steel producing countries Rank Rank Country 2006 2005 %Change 2006 2005 1 1 China 418.8 355.8 17.7 2 2 Japan 116.2 112.5 3.3 3 3 US 98.5 94.9 3.8 4 4 Russia 70.6 66.1 6.8 5 5 S. Korea 48.4 47.8 1.3 6 6 Germany 47.2 44.5 6.1 7 7 India 44.0 40.9 7.6 8 8 Ukraine 40.8 38.6 5.7 9 10 Italy 31.6 29.4 7.5 10 9 Brazil 30.9 31.6 -2.2