China realizes net export of steel in August
According to customs data released on September 11, China exported 2.08 million tons of steel in August, the highest recorded since the beginning of 2009, and imported 1.59 million tons of steel and 350,000 tons of billet steel. This means that China has again realized net export of steel following a net import of steel sustained for five consecutive months since March 2009.
"In upcoming months, China's steel export situation will continue to improve, but recovery will be slow." Mysteel.com analyst Xu Xiangchun believes that under the influence of factors such as the sharp drop in domestic steel prices, the narrowing gap between international and domestic steel prices and the export tax rebate, China's steel exports will continue to increase month-on-month.
Analysts from umetal.com believe that the recovery of China's steel exports is in line with market expectation and is also the result of further improved overseas market demand. Since the beginning of the second quarter, the overall international economic situation has been improving gradually. Three powerful economic entities, the U.S., the EU and Japan, have effectively curbed their falling GDPs, and their decline rates have been narrowing. South Korea is the second largest target country of China's steel export, and its GDP increased by 2.3 percent in the second quarter compared to that of the first quarter.
Since the beginning of the second half of 2009, international steel prices have been slowly rising. The trend of increasing prices for China's domestic steel ended in the beginning of August, after which prices started to fall rapidly. Therefore, the gap between international and domestic prices has gradually narrowed, which means that China's domestic steel prices have become more competitive and much more attractive to purchasers.
In August, China imported 49.68 million tons of iron ore, down 14.5 percent compared to the 58.08 million tons of July. According to customs data released on September 11, in the first eight months of 2009, China imported 404.90 million tons of iron ore, up 32 percent year-on-year. The total amount spent reached was 30.938 billion U.S. dollars, and the average price of the ore was 76.41 U.S. dollars per ton.
According to the statistics from umetal.com, the total iron ore storage volume of China's 19 ports on September 11 was 73.74 million tons, down 390,000 tons compared to that of the same time the previous week. The price of iron ore peaked at 110 U.S. dollars per ton, but has now dropped to about 80 U.S. dollars per ton.
