Steel price in China falls to new low level - CISA

According to the CISA, China produced 618 million tonnes of steel, 542 million tonnes of pig iron, 839 million tonnes of steel products during the first three quarters of this year, representing an annualized increase of 2.34 percent, 0.38 percent and 5.02 percent, respectively.

In October, China's Composite Steel Price (CSPI) fell 86.15 points, reaching its lowest level since January 2003. This is due to the fact that metallurgists have been on the verge of making profits and losses for a long time in the face of falling prices, declining demand in the cold-rolled products market and oversupply. The scale of losses for large steel producers in the first three quarters was 25 percent, down 6.28 percent YoY.

In terms of imports and exports, the average import price of steel products came to $ 1,246 per tonne, while the average steel export price was $ 783 per tonne. The value of the spread between imports and exports has increased even more.

Zhang Changfu, vice chairman of CISA, said that “the increase in steel exports is due to a significant decline in steel prices and a huge price spread between China and overseas countries. There is no doubt that steel exports will break through 80 million tons this year. export at a low price will cause trade friction. This cannot be a long-term policy aimed at digesting domestic excess capacity at the expense of huge amounts of steel exports. "