The World Steel Association (worldsteel) has released its Short-Range Outlook for 2024 and 2025, forecasting that steel demand will rebound by 1.7 percent this year to 1.79 billion mt and by 1.2 percent in 2025 to 1.82 billion mt. In the previous forecast, steel demand had been expected to increase by 1.9 percent in 2024 to 1.85 billion mt.
Worldsteel pointed out that global steel demand shows early signs of settling in a positive trajectory in 2024 and 2025 after two years of negativity and significant market volatility since the pandemic in 2020.
However, the association warned that, currently, the EU and the UK are facing the biggest challenges and their steel-using sectors are impacted by geopolitical shifts and uncertainty, high inflation, monetary tightening and partial withdrawal of fiscal support, and still high energy and commodity prices. These factors led to a significant drop in their steel demand in 2023 to the lowest level since 2000. After only a technical rebound in 2024, their steel demand is expected to finally show a recovery with a 5.3 percent growth in 2025. The forecasted steel demand for the EU in 2024 is only 1.5 million mt higher than during the pandemic in 2020.
In its regional analysis, worldsteel said that China’s steel demand this year will remain around the same level in 2023 since the investments in real estate continue to decline. However, an increase in demand from the infrastructure and manufacturing sectors will compensate for the loss in steel demand, though China’s steel demand in 2025 is expected to resume a downtrend with a one percent drop.
In the meantime, the association forecasts that global steel demand excluding China will grow by 3.5 percent year on year in 2024-25. In developed economies, steel demand is expected to increase by 1.3 percent this year and by 2.7 percent in 2025, while the growth steel demand in developing economies, particularly in the MENA and ASEAN regions, is expected to accelerate.
