Global, Chinese Steel Demand To Rise Even As Chinese Economy Slows
- According to MetalMiner, the World Steel Association announced last week that it believes global steel demand will increase 3.9 percent to 1.775 million tons in 2019 and by 1.7 percent to 1.806 million tons in 2020. Steel demand in China is predicted to rise 7.8 percent in 2019 and one percent in 2020. Steel demand in countries other than China is predicted to increase 0.4 percent in 2019 and 4.1 percent in 2020. Saeed Al Remeithi, chairman of the World Steel Association’s Economics Committee, said, “[G]lobal steel demand will continue to grow in 2019, more than we expected in these challenging times, mainly due to China … In the rest of the world, steel demand slowed in 2019 as uncertainty, trade tensions and geopolitical issues weighed on investment and trade.” Remeithi also noted “Manufacturing, particularly the auto industry, has performed poorly contracting in many countries …”
- The Chinese government announced last week that the nation’s economy expanded six percent from the third quarter of 2018 to the third quarter of 2019, the slowest growth rate in more than a quarter century. CNBC said, “the country’s trade war with the U.S. took its toll.” Experts also predicted that economic growth in China will continue to soften. Julian Evans-Pritchard, senior China economist at Capital Economics, said, “Cooling global demand will continue to weigh on exports, fiscal constraints mean that infrastructure spending will wane in the near-term and the recent boom in property construction looks set to unwind.” Industrial output was up 5.8 percent in the third quarter of 2019, a “bright spot” in the report, CNBC said.