CONF: China’s steel demand from key sectors stable in ‘19

“Fixed asset investment in China’s infrastructure construction was at a relatively high level in the first quarter of 2019 and it will remain so. FAI in the country’ property market, at Yuan 15-16 trillion ($2.2-2.4 trillion), is unlikely to change much (and) will guarantee their demand for supply will stay at a reasonably high range,” Wu, deputy general director of CISA, said.

So far in 2019, both the markets have been reporting rather satisfying results, Wu noted. Over January-March, China’s fixed asset investment in the property market grew 11.8% on year, a new high since 2015, while FAI in newly launched projects grew 11.9% on year, which was also 5.9 percentage points higher than that in the first two months, he told delegates.

China’s official statistics showed that infrastructure construction investment grew 4.4% on year for this year’s first three months, up 0.1 percentage point from January-February.

China’s excavator sales have always been strong indicators of the performance in these two sectors, as large-sized excavators are usually used in infrastructure, while medium- and small-sized earthmovers are preferred for property development, he explained, noting that the machinery sales have maintained rather high growth so far this year.

Sales of construction equipment recorded by China’s 25 leading excavator makers totalled 44,278 units in March, up by a significant 15.7% on year, as reported, while over January-March, China’s sales of yellow goods reached 74,779 units in total, up by 24.5% on year.

In the first quarter of 2019, China’s apparent crude steel consumption totalled 216 million tonnes, higher by 18.3 million tonnes or 9.2% on year, according to Wu, which matched the pace of China’s steel production that grew 9.9% on year to around 231 million tonnes during the period, Mysteel Global notes.

Written by Hongmei Li, li.hongmei@mysteel.com

Edited by Russ McCulloch, russ.mcculloch@mysteel.com