中文
China's steel industry was stable as a while in the first half of 2022, but weakened in late months. This is reflected by following five facts.
The first one is falling crude steel output. China's crude steel production during January-May continued to rise, but posted a fall in June, with output at 90.73 million tonnes, down 5.88 million tonnes or 3.3% from May.
China's total crude steel output fell 6.5% or 36.45 million tonnes year on year to 527 million tonnes in the first half of 2022.
The second is steel product prices, which rose to a high point in mid-April. As of the end of June, China's composite steel price index was 122.52 points, down 7% from the start of year and 14% from high point in the year.
The third is higher steel product stocks. Inventory of five major steel products in China's 21 cities declined 2.6% from ten days ago to 12.52 million tonnes on June 30, according to data from China Iron and Steel Association.
The fourth is slumped industry profits. Total profit of ferrous metal and processing dived 68.7% on the year to 82.6 billion yuan ($12.15 billion), and losses surged 442.4% to 41 billion yuan.
The fifth is fast growth of investment. The year-on-year growth of investment of ferrous metal from January to June was at 76.1%, up 74.6 percentage points from a year ago.
(Writing by Rebecca Liu Editing by Harry Huo)
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