China: Crude Steel Output Registers Slow Growth in Q1 Amid COVID-19 Pandemic

As per the latest data released by the National Bureau of Statistics( NBS) nation's aggregated crude steel output stood at 234 MnT in Q1 CY '20, up by 1.2% in comparison to Q1 CY'19.

This year the nation announced a lockdown which extended the holidays until mid-Feb'20 to combat the COVID-19 outbreak. Thus, strict restrictions on transportation and logistics and other industry-related activities resulted in delayed resumption which in turn resulted in tepid growth in steel output this quarter.

Further, during the lockdown period, Chinese mills had reported a significant surge in inventory levels amid sluggish demand in the domestic market which pushed them to adopt production cuts.

However, the output declined by 2% on a yearly premise in Mar'20 with 78.98 MnT of crude steel produced against 80.33 MnT in Mar'19.