China Steel Demand Falls First Time in 14 Years

China’s steel consumption dropped this year for the first time since at least 2000 due to slower economic growth, leading to a surplus of iron ore in the country and a more than 40 percent plunge in prices of the steelmaking raw material.

But top global miners like Vale and Rio Tinto, which have invested billions of dollars to ramp up output to sell more iron ore to China, are still convinced that Chinese demand has yet to peak with an urbanization drive there expected to last at least another decade.

Apparent crude steel consumption in China, the world’s top consumer and producer of the alloy, fell 1.9 percent on year to 61.9 million tonnes in August, Wang Xiaoqi, vice chairman of the China Iron and Steel Association, told an industry conference.

“There are many reasons for this – the economy slowing and the economy undergoing restructuring. Steel consuming sectors have cut their demand,” Wang said on Thursday.

via CNBC

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza