[Ferro-Alloys.com] Commenting on the outlook, Mr Al Remeithi, Chairman of the worldsteel Economics Committee said, “The current SRO suggests that global steel demand will continue to grow in 2019, more than we expected in these challenging times, mainly due to China. In the rest of the world, steel demand slowed in 2019 as uncertainty, trade tensions and geopolitical issues weighed on investment and trade. Manufacturing, particularly the auto industry, has performed poorly contracting in many countries, however in construction, despite some slowing, a positive momentum has been maintained.

Chinese steel demand is expected to grow by 7.8% in 2019, largely driven by real estate investment. In the first seven months of 2019 China’s real estate market reported the strongest performance over the same period for the last five years. 

After growing by 1.2% in 2018, steel demand in the developed economies is expected to show a small contraction of -0.1% in 2019. The consumer sectors and construction maintained positive momentum, however manufacturing slumped due to a deteriorating environment for export and investment. In 2020, with the effect of some technical rebound, steel demand in the developed world is expected to grow by 0.6%.

Growth of steel demand in the emerging economies excluding China is expected to slow down to 0.4% in 2019 due to contractions in Turkey, MENA and Latin America.  But the growth is expected to rebound to 4.1% in 2020 due to infrastructure investments, especially in Asia.

Click here for more information: Ferrosilicon Daily Express 10.15

• [Editor:kangmingfei]