H. Yoo
Research expert covering South Korea
Steel industry in China - statistics and facts
Modern life depends on steel. Infrastructure, buildings, and cars require huge amounts of iron and steel in the production process. During its modernization process, China has built up a gigantic production capacity for iron and steel and is, by way, the largest steel producer worldwide, with an annual crude steel production volume exceeding one billion metric tons for the past two consecutive years. Although China consumes the largest share of its produced steel, exports also play an important role for Chinese steelmakers. Controversial accusations have long been voiced that state-subsidized Chinese steel mills are flooding the world market with cheap steel at dumping prices. In recent years, the Chinese government has taken steps to cut the industry’s overcapacity. This has barely affected China's global share of crude steel production, which has continued to rise, surpassing 50 percent since 2017.
China’s steel use
The amount of steel China consumes itself is difficult to assess. Not only do imports and exports have to be taken into consideration, but the indirect trade in steel, embedded in products partly made of steel like machinery, cars, or white goods, needs to be included as well. Apparent steel use (ASU), an indicator developed by the World Steel Association to measure steel demand and is expressed as deliveries minus net exports, stood at 995 million metric tons of finished steel products for China in 2020. True steel use (TSU), which additionally takes into account the volume of net indirect trade and therefore comes close to the actual amount of steel products consumed in China, amounted to around 725.5 million metric tons of finished steel products in 2019.Iron ore
The Chinese steel industry is not only dependent on the global market for sales, but also on the supply of raw materials, especially iron ore. Although China domestically mines large quantities of iron ore and possesses the fourth largest reserves of iron ore in the world, its iron ore is of low quality and contains only relatively low quantities of iron. Therefore, China is heavily reliant on the global iron ore supply, being by way the largest importer of iron ore worldwide. Imports are coming mainly from Australia and Brazil, these two countries together making up more than 80 percent of total iron ore imports to China.Steel recycling
In recent years, recycling has played a growing part in steelmaking in China, as the Chinese government has tried to increase the recycling rate of steel scrap. Although still low compared to other countries, the recycling rate of steel scrap used in crude steel production reached nearly 22 percent in 2021 and is likely to increase further in the coming years.Steel manufactures
Faced with overcapacity in domestic and global markets, China's steel industry is going through a thorough restructuring phase. A prime example of this restructuring process is the merger of Baosteel Group and Wuhan Iron and Steel in 2016, forming China Baowu Steel Group. In May 2019, Baowu Group obtained a controlling stake in the listed entity of Maanshan Iron and Steel, which brought Baowu close to its goal of becoming a steel giant with more than 100 million metric tons of annual output volume. This enabled Baowu to overtake ArcelorMittal as the world's largest steel producer on a global scale. Although many steel enterprises in China are state-owned, like Baowu, having only parts of their companies listed on the stock exchange, there are also many private steelmakers in China, the largest being Shagang Group from Jiangsu province.
