Over the past week China's domestic pre-painted galvanized iron prices have been following an almost flat trend. For example, the price of CGCC 0.476 mm x 1,000 mm x C material produced by Wuxi NewDaZhong still stands at RMB 5,450/mt, the same as last Friday.
This week China's domestic PPGI prices remained almost unchanged, as HR prices entered a fluctuating trend after their upward movement of the week before. Meanwhile, some mills have continued to decrease their ex-works prices as they still lack confidence in the current market. Some traders and downstream users are still maintain a wait-and-see approach to the market, though the transaction situation is not bad at present as inventories are not on the high side. However, with the weather getting colder, demand has not shown any signs of improvement. In this general context, it appears difficult for another obvious increase to take place and so PPGI prices will most likely remain unchanged in the next few weeks.
As for the domestic mills, Union Steel China this week issued its PPGI ex-works prices for November, decreasing its prices by RMB 300/mt ($43/mt) compared to its ex-works price for October. Thus, its new price of 0.5 mm CGCC is at RMB 6,565/mt ($962/mt), including 17 percent VAT.
Based on the situation observed this week, as inventories are low, there could be some small increase in PPGI prices. However, basically, local PPGI prices in China are expected to follow a more or less flat trend in the next few weeks.