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China retained its top position in global automobile output and sales for a tenth straight year in 2018, despite reductions in both last year, according to the latest statistics from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) published on January 14.
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China Railway Corporation says another 6,800 km of new rail lines will be added to the country’s network this year which, if realised, would be 45% more than the 4,683 km commissioned last year, according to a January 2 post on the company’s official website.
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Last Friday’s surprise announcement from the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) of further cuts to the reserve ratio required of commercial banks has been warmly welcomed by Chinese steel market participants canvassed by Mysteel for the lift in confidence and spending the policy tweak is likely to bring.
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The new vigour seen in the rebar futures price on the Shanghai Futures Exchange after China’s December 30-January 1 holiday – where prices have climbed for the past two days while those in the physical market have declined daily – has taken market watchers by surprise.
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Vehicle sales across China during 2018 will probably decrease by 2%-3% on year to 28 million units, a level lower than expected at the start of this year, admitted an official from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) on Wednesday.
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China’s Central Economic Work Conference, an annual event held around this time each year to formulate the country’s economic development goals for the coming year, wrapped up deliberations for 2019 last Friday, but the key tasks agreed upon did nothing to energize sentiment in China’s ferrous market. “No new factors likely to boost the ferrous market were highlighted,” one market source remarked on Monday.
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Rio Tinto, headquartered in London, has completed the sale of its entire off-take interest in the Grasberg copper mine in Indonesia for $3.5 billion, as part of a series of transactions involving Indonesia’s state mining company PT Indonesia Asahan Aluminium (Inalum) and Freeport McMoRan Inc (Freeport), the company announced last Friday.
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China’s domestic steel prices for 2019 will be relying on the demand for support instead of the supply-side trimming as the latter has come to the end and its impact on prices, thus, will wane off, according to the panelists at the Mysteel Annual Seminar on December 16 in Shanghai.
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Both China’s and global economies will still be “in a healthy and reasonable range” for 2019 despite a most probable slow-down from 2018, Wang Yu, vice head of Research Bureau in the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said with confidence at the Mysteel Annual Seminar on December 15 in Shanghai.
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Bulk commodity prices across China including those of steel are likely fluctuate within a reasonable band next year under the influence of the slowdown in the national and global economies, Lu Yanchun, head of the Department of Price under China’s National Development and Reform Commission, told the Mysteel Annual Seminar in Shanghai on Saturday.
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China’s property market, currently the prime mover of domestic economic growth, should remain stable next year, Chen Xiaotian told delegates attending the Mysteel Annual Seminar in Shanghai over the weekend. Chen is chairman of EH Consulting Co, a large Shanghai-based consultancy for real estate companies.
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Chinese economists and government officials speaking at the Mysteel Annual Seminar on December 15 in Shanghai agreed that the country’s economic growth for 2019 should draw upon China’s internal strengths including the continuing relaxation of taxation to boost consumption, maintaining fixed asset investment in infrastructure, and selectively loosing up controls over the property market.
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For 2019, China’s economic growth will be generally stable with perhaps just a modest decline, Zhang Junkuo, vice head of Development Research Centre of the State Council, said on December 15 at the Mysteel Annual Seminar in Shanghai.
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Production and sales of automobiles in China in November fell at a faster pace on year compared with October, new data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) published on December 11 shows, with both plunging by 18.9% and 13.9% on year respectively. On month though, output and sales were higher by 7% and 7.1% respectively.
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China’s fixed asset investment (excluding rural households) increased by 5.7% on year to Yuan 54.76 trillion ($7.9 trillion) during the January-October period, according to the latest data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics released on November 14. The yearly FAI growth was up by another 0.3 percentage point from that during the first nine months.
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China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has approved plans for a Yuan 53.5 billion ($7.7 billion) high-speed railway project in Southwest China’s Chongqing municipality, injecting new investment into the country’s infrastructure sector, according to an NDRC release on October 30.
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China’s foreign trade with the countries along the “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) route continued to grow at a faster pace, up 13.2% on year over January-September as against the 9.9% growth in China’s overall foreign trade over the period, Gao Feng, spokesperson of China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOC) commented a press conference on October 25.
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Beijing’s latest vows on financially supporting the development of micro, small-size and privately-invested enterprises have definitely boosted domestic sentiment including the steel market, but the direct benefit is expected rather limited to the steel producers, market sources shared on Wednesday.
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China’s fixed asset investment (excluding rural households) increased by 5.4% on year to Yuan 48.3 trillion ($7 trillion) during the January-September period, according to the latest data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics released on October 19. The yearly FAI growth was up by a slight 0.1 percentage point from that over the first eight months, Mysteel noted.
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Shagang Group (Shagang), China’s largest electric-arc-furnace (EAF) steelmaker, announced on October 15 to raise its steel scrap procurement prices by Yuan 60-80/tonne ($8.6-11.6/t), the first price adjustment in one and a half months, as it has been running at low stocks.
