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New data from China’s central bank on Friday showing a surge in lending in January has sent positive signals to the country’s ferrous market as the sector expects the softening of financing and credit conditions should give a fillip to demand for steel and steelmaking raw materials, Mysteel has learned.
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For January, China’s imports of coal and lignite surged 19.5% on year to 33.5 million tonnes, and the exports of coke
and semi-coke grew 4.4% on year to 716,000 tonnes. A detailed
report will be posted.
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China's January iron ore imports decreased 9.1% on year to 91.3 million tonnes. A detailed report will be posted.
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China’s energy consumption structure has been in the progress of optimization with the ratio from thermal coal down further by 1.4 percentage points on year for 2018 though the total consumption grew 3.3% on year, according to the latest release from the country’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
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China’s steel market is expected to reach a balance in 2019 with the continuing efforts by the industry to deepen its supply-side reform, prevent the reincarnation of induction furnace capacities and the unswerving efforts in pollution control, the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) reaffirmed in its latest steel market monthly analysis on January 22.
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China’s fixed asset investment (excluding rural households) gained 5.9% on year to Yuan 63.56 trillion ($9.36 trillion) for the whole 2018, with the growth being flat from the first eleven months, according to the latest data released by China’s National Bureau of Statistics on January 21.
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China's auto manufacturing fell 3.8% on year to about 28 million units for 2018. A detailed report will be posted.
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China's coal production including thermal and metallurgical coal grew 5.2% on year to 3.55 billion tonnes for 2018, and that for coke grew 0.8% on year to 438.2 million tonnes. A detailed report will be posted.
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China's finished steel output grew 8.5% on year to 1.105 billion tonnes, exceeding the benchmark of 1 billion tonnes for the first time. A detailed report will be posted.
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China's crude steel output grew 6.6% on year to 928.3 million tonnes for 2018. A detailed report will be posted.
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China's fixed asset investment grew 5.9% on year for 2018, and that into property sector up 9.5%. Detailed reports will be posted.
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China's 2018 GDP grew 6.6% on year, within expectation. A detailed report will be posted.
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The trade row which simmered for much of last year between Washington and Beijing had little impact on the actual value of goods travelling between China and the United States, with data released by China’s Ministry and Commerce (MoC) on January 17 showing that the value of total two-way trade in goods reached $630 billion last year, a jump of 7.9% on year. Cross investment between the world’s two largest economies also reached $240 billion, the MoC data show.
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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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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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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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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.
