Business Wire, a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary headquartered in California, US, latest report on “Overview, 2011- 2020” showed that in 2015, the output volume of steel products reached approximately 1,123 million tonnes in China (declining by 0.15 percent compared to 2014, which dropped for the first time in the past 34 years).

The major material of steel product manufacture is iron ore. The import of iron ore in China highly depends on foreign countries. In 2015, China imported 953 million tonnes of iron ore with an increase of 2.2 percent compared to 2014, which accounted for 81 percent of the national demand for iron ore. Therefore, the price trend of imported iron ore exerted a huge impact on the profit margin of steel product manufacturers.

From 2013 on, the price of imported iron ore continued to fall. The price of iron ore imported by China in the second half of 2015 declined by more than a half compared to that in the first half of 2013. The decline is conducive to decreasing the costs of steel manufacturers so as to increase the profit margin.

The increase of exported steel products was stimulated by the international demand for steel products, which reflected the strengthening competitiveness of Chinese steel products in the international market. In spite of many trade barriers, the steel products exported by China are expected to keep increasing with huge price advantages, which will become one of the key factors in the development of China steel industry.

In the next few years , it is predicted that the economic growth of China will continue to decline.However, the annual growth rate is expected to maintain about six percent. With the implementation of such strategies as One Belt and One Road, Made in China 2025 and Yangtze River Economic Belt, there will emerge certain demand for steel products, which will bring in new opportunities for the development of China steel industry.

APMEN Sept 2016, News