During the week ending December 15, hot dip galvanized (HDG) prices in the Chinese domestic market continued their downward movement in a context of weak demand. HDG prices in the Chinese market can be viewed in the SteelOrbis price reports section.
In the past week, domestic traders have been focused on quickly selling off their inventories against a background of sluggish demand, causing a decline in HDG prices. Meanwhile, major Chinese steel producer Baosteel Group announced its new price policy on December 12, reducing some of its HDG prices and keeping others unchanged. Its new prices are not expected to have any great influence on the current market.
According to market players, HDG deliveries from the steel mills are observed to be at normal levels, while a steady flow of new HDG product arrivals is expected in the near future. Some traders state that, if these supplies are not rapidly digested, there will be strong inventory pressure on the domestic HDG market. Influenced by the availability of low-priced HDG products here and there in the market and also by the lack of improvement in demand, traders in the Chinese HDG market are not very confident.
It is expected that prices of HDG will continue to trend down slightly in the Chinese domestic market in the coming week.