The World Steel Association stated that from 2020 to early 2021, China’s economy will continue its strong recovery. However, since June this year, China’s economic development has begun to slow down. Since July, the development of China’s steel industry has shown obvious signs of deceleration. Steel demand fell by 13.3% in July and 18.3% in August. The slowdown in the development of the steel industry is partly due to severe weather and repeated wavelet new crown pneumonia outbreaks in summer. However, the most important reasons include the slowdown in the development of the construction industry and government restrictions on steel production. The decline in the real estate industry’s activity is due to the Chinese government’s policy of strictly controlling financing for real estate developers launched in 2020. At the same time, China’s infrastructure investment will not increase in 2021, and the recovery of the global manufacturing industry will also affect the development of its export trade activities.
The World Steel Association stated that due to the continued deceleration of the real estate industry in 2021, China’s steel demand will experience negative growth for the remainder of 2021. Therefore, although China’s apparent steel consumption increased by 2.7% from January to August, overall steel demand in 2021 is expected to fall by 1.0%. The World Steel Association believes that in accordance with the Chinese government’s economic rebalancing and environmental protection policy positioning, it is expected that steel demand will hardly grow positively in 2022, and some replenishment of inventories may support its apparent steel consumption.