According to the data released by the General Administration of Customs, in the first half of the year, China imported 5.822 million tons of steel products, down 12.71% year-on-year; imported slabs of 506,800 tons, steel ingots of 14,700 tons, and billets totaling 521,500 tons; equivalent crude steel imports of about 6.59 million tons. In the first half of the year, China exported 3,439,500 tons of steel, down 2.60% year-on-year; exported 12,900 tons of steel billets, 0.05 million tons of steel ingots, and a total of 13,400 tons of billets; equivalent to 35.85 million tons of crude steel exports. In the first half of the year, China's cumulative net export of crude steel was about 29.26 million tons, a year-on-year increase of 0.34%.
In terms of the amount, in the first half of the year, the average price of China's steel imports was 1,193.37 US dollars / ton, down 5.30% year-on-year; the average export price was 814.62 US dollars / ton, down 5.51% year-on-year.
Steel Product Trading
Analysis of Friction And Response
As of the end of August, foreign countries have initiated eight new trade remedy investigations on Chinese steel products this year. Among them, there were 7 anti-dumping investigations and 1 investigation of safeguard measures. The countries or regions that initiated the investigation included the European Union, India, Australia, Malaysia, Egypt, Ukraine and Mexico. At present, the trade frictions that focus on the United States are the United States to impose tariffs on US$300 billion in Chinese products and review of EU steel safeguard measures.
In the context of Sino-US trade frictions, stabilizing other countries and regional markets is of great significance to China's steel exports. Since the beginning of this year, the number of trade remedy investigations initiated by other countries and regions on Chinese steel products has fallen sharply year-on-year, and the trade friction between China and ASEAN and South America has eased. At the same time, the China Iron and Steel Association organized a number of trade remedy cases to achieve good results: in the EU steel security measures survey, the main export products obtained country quotas; Turkey steel security measures survey, Costa Rica rebar safeguard measures investigation without damage; The Eurasia Economic Commission's investigation of the sheet guarantee measures excluded all the products involved in China and agreed to negotiate price negotiations with the Chinese side in the anti-dumping investigation of galvanized sheets. In the first half of the year, China exported 2.85 million tons of steel to the above countries or regions. The favorable results obtained through the case response have played an important role in protecting China's export market.
Analysis of Steel Importing
From the perspective of imported varieties, the varieties with significant decline in the number of steel imports are mainly stainless steel billets and stainless steel hot rolled coils and galvanized sheets. In March, China made anti-dumping preliminary rulings on stainless steel billets and stainless steel hot rolled coils originating in Japan, South Korea, the European Union and Indonesia. Since then, the import volume of products involved has dropped significantly. Since the average price of imported products is higher than that of ordinary carbon products, the significant drop in import volume is also one of the important reasons for the decline in the average price of steel imports. In the first half of the year, China's cumulative imports of stainless steel billet was 93,600 tons, down 73.78% year-on-year; imported stainless steel hot rolled coil was 260,600 tons, down 50.95% year-on-year; imported galvanized sheet was 913,800 tons, down 21.81% year-on-year. Among them, the number of galvanized sheets imported from Korea, Japan and Taiwan has dropped by more than 20%.
Analysis of Steel Exporting
In the first half of the year, the top three countries or regions in China's steel exports were ASEAN, South Korea and the Middle East, exporting 1997.21 million tons of steel products to the above three countries or regions, down 2.13% year-on-year; accounting for 58.06% of total exports. It increased by 0.28 percentage points year-on-year. Among them, 11.44 million tons of steel were exported to ASEAN, down 9.52% year-on-year; exports to Korea were 4.5715 million tons, up 21.32% year-on-year; exports to the Middle East were 3.958 million tons, down 0.85% year-on-year.
In the first half of the year, the top five countries in China's steel export rankings were South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia. The total exports of steel products to the above five countries were 13.3822 million tons, up 1.93% year-on-year; accounting for 38.90% of total steel exports, accounting for a year-on-year. Increase by 1.73 percentage points.(Source from China metallurgical News)
