Downtrend persists in sluggish Chinese domestic CRC market

While steel mills have been receiving few orders recently, cost support for cold rolled spot market materials has been gradually impaired. Meanwhile, with market prices falling below the ex-mill prices of cold rolled products, traders have no great interest in placing orders at present. This has resulted in an increased CR inventories at steel mills, which has caused mills to sell at low prices. Furthermore, the current period is the slow season for the downstream sectors, in particular the auto and white goods sectors, and so tonnages ordered by these sectors have shrunk significantly, also due in part to the withdrawal of stimulus policies for the white goods sector. In this context, the Chinese cold rolled steel market will probably continue to face a prolonged period of sluggishness. As for the coming week, it is expected that CRC prices in the Chinese domestic market will remain on their downward trend.