That spending splurge has now run its course as Beijing grapples with the resulting overhang of unsold housing stock.Ĭhina’s own steel demand probably peaked in 2014, according to the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA), a grouping of 100 or so of the country’s top producers. The boom was fed by the country’s massive infrastructure and property programmes unleashed in the wake of the global financial crisis. The country now accounts for around half of global steel output. STEEL MONSTERĬhina has built a steel leviathan over the last decade. The scale of the task mirrors the scale of the steel monster that years of unbridled investment have spawned. Indeed, restructuring the steel sector is going to be a key test of Beijing’s ability to re-engineer its economy away from the old fixed-asset-investment model towards a more consumerist version.
“Most of the EU steel industry may disappear,” warned Axel Eggert, director general of EU steel industry body Eurofer.īut, ironically, China itself is suffering from its own previous steel excess just as much as anyone else. In Europe, debate is raging about whether to grant China market economy status, a move critics claim will make it harder to impose the sort of anti-dumping duties just levied on Chinese reinforcing bar (rebar). The country stands accused of dumping steel onto world markets, depressing prices and triggering plant closures.Ī backlash of trade complaints and anti-dumping duties is building. Of the top 10 national producers only one, India, raised production last year, according to the World Steel Association. Steel production is falling just about everywhere. The country’s steel production dropped by 10.4 percent last year. Her bleak warning came during a parliamentary debate on the lengthening list of British steel plant closures and redundancies, which have claimed around one-sixth of the steel workforce over the last six months. LONDON, Feb 3 (Reuters) - The crisis in the British steel industry risks becoming a “death spiral”, according to Angela Eagle, business spokeswoman for the country’s opposition Labour Party. (The opinions expressed here are those of the author, a columnist for Reuters.))
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