On October 29, He Wenbo, secretary of the party committee and executive vice president of the China Iron and Steel Association (hereinafter referred to as the China Iron and Steel Association), said that China's crude steel production this year may reach 994 million tons.

This represents an increase of about 7.1% compared to last year's 928 million tonnes.

In the first nine months of this year, China's crude steel production was 748 million tons, an increase of 8.36% year-on-year.

He Wenbo said that China's steel production capacity is released quickly, and on the basis of last year's high base, the 7% year-on-year growth rate can be regarded as a high growth rate.

In the first nine months of this year, China exported a total of 50.31 million tons of steel, down 5% year-on-year.

According to statistics from the China Steel Association, the total steel inventory in October was 12.56 million tons, down 5.6% from the previous month. Among them, the total inventory of steel market was 11.74 million tons, down 5.3% from the previous month; Port inventories were 820,000 tonnes, down 10.3% month-on-month.

He Wenbo said that the scale of China's infrastructure investment can enable China's steel production to maintain positive growth on the current base.

Statistics show that in the first 9 months, long products mainly used in construction steel increased by 14.85% year-on-year. He Wenbo said that this shows that infrastructure investment has driven the demand for steel, and shows that the crude steel output of small and medium-sized steel enterprises has increased more than that of China Steel Association member enterprises, because the production of small and medium-sized steel enterprises is mainly based on long products of construction steel.

According to September statistics, the growth rate of crude steel is declining. "This is a noteworthy trend," Mr. He said. In the first eight months of this year, China's crude steel production increased by 9.1% year-on-year.

"If the daily crude steel production in the fourth quarter remains at the level of the previous three quarters, the annual crude steel production will reach 1 billion tons. He Wenbo said.

In the first nine months of this year, the efficiency of China Steel Association member enterprises declined, with sales revenue of 3.18 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11.6%; The total profit was 146.6 billion yuan, down 32% year-on-year; The sales margin was 4.6%, down 3 percentage points from the same period last year.

During the same period, steel prices have declined, and in the first nine months, the China Steel Price Index (CSPI) composite index averaged 108.58 points, down 6.2% year-on-year.

According to the latest World Economic Outlook report released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in October, the global economy will grow by 3% year-on-year this year, down 0.6 percentage points from the previous year.

According to the short-term forecast released by the World Steel Association (WSA) in October, this year's global steel demand will increase by 3.9% year-on-year, the growth rate is 0.7 percentage points lower than the previous year; it is predicted that global steel demand will only increase by 1.7% in 2020, and China's steel demand will still maintain growth, but the growth rate has decreased significantly.

Steel scrap and iron ore are both raw materials for steelmaking. At present, the international iron ore market is in a weak balance. While China's demand for iron ore is stable, international demand is declining, and some steel mills are dissatisfied with the current trading mechanism and trying to reinvent the wheel, which will affect iron ore prices.