Addressing delegates at the International Ferroalloy and Stainless Steel Industry Annual Conference in Nanjing on November 16 organized by Mysteel, Wu highlighted the overall downward trend in China’s construction sector – a symptom of the country’s struggling property market.
For example, although China’s fixed asset investment (FAI) has been increasing overall in recent years, the proportion of funding allocated in the domestic property market continued to fall within total FAI, Wu pointed out, taking the fact as an obvious sign reflecting the slip in the property market.
Over the first ten months of this year, though the country’s fixed asset investment increased by 2.9% on year to total Yuan 41.94 trillion ($5.78 trillion), funding invested in the property market dropped 9.3% on year to Yuan 9.59 trillion, according to data released by China’s National Bureau of Statistics.
On the other hand, new growth was seen in China’s manufacturing sector, Wu told delegates, with the home appliance industry and automotive manufacturing sectors posting relatively strong performances.
For example, the processing volume of structural steel in China – such as beams and other section steel items – is expected to reach 150 million tonnes by 2025 and above 200 million tonnes by 2035, compared with 97 million tonnes in 2021, Wu said, quoting China Steel Construction Society data.
Regarding the international market, China’s steel exports will stabilize at a relatively high base but no more significant rise will be seen this year and next, Wu predicted. In fact, global steel demand has been staying relatively stable in recent years, with most of the rise in steel production and consumption coming from India’s domestic market, Wu claimed.
Compared with 2000, for example, global crude steel output had jumped by 117 million tonnes or 16.2% in 2022. Among which, India’s steel output last year soared by 97.8 million tonnes or 363% from 2000, while the global steel production excluding India gained by just 2.8% during the same period.
