China Iron & Steel Association vice chairman Luo Tiejun said that China’s actual finished steel demand may grow 5% in 2020, lower than the expected 8% on-year growth in China’s finished steel demand for 2020 by the World Steel Association in its Short Range Outlook. He said “China’s steel demand declined by 30% on year in the first quarter of 2020 because of the pandemic, as activities in the construction and manufacturing slowed down substantially, but the demand from the downstream industries had recovered evidently in the second and third quarter.”

As for the country’s overall steel exports and imports, he predicted a 15% on-year decline in the former while a 60% on-year sharp growth in the latter, which will be equivalent to 54.7 million tonnes of steel exports and 19.7 million tonnes of imports for the whole 2020 Over January-September, China exported 40.4 million tonnes of finished steel and imported 15.7 million tonnes of finished steel,