SHANGHAI, Dec. 17 (Xinhua) -- China's steel market is generally in a tight balance in 2018 and the market in 2019 is expected to maintain basically stable, according to insiders attending the just held China's Steel Market Prospect for 2019 in Shanghai.
In 2018, the price trend of China's domestic steel market was dominated by the supply side, and the steel prices fluctuated at a high level throughout the year, said Ren Zhuqian, a senior researcher at the steel information service Mysteel.
Ren noted that the production limit in the domestic steel industry due to environment protection has expanded from local areas to most key areas of the country. The major steel-consumption industries including automobile and home appliance achieved good performances in the first half of the year, while their steel consumption gradually declined in the second half of the year.
The steel industry continued to maintain sound profits and the supply and demand of crude steel in the whole year were tightly balanced, Ren added.
Looking forward to 2019, Wang Jianhua, an analyst of Mysteel and other industry analysts believe that steel prices will return to a reasonable level and the average steel price in 2019 is expected to be about 10 percent lower than that in 2018. The steel producers will see rising profits but regional differences will be obvious. The steel raw material market will show a trend of differentiation. The average price of coke will rise slightly, and that of iron ore and steel scrap may witness a decline.
Some industry experts believe that China's domestic steel industry will gradually enter a new stage of high-quality development, and steel companies should closely follow the market changes and make production plans according to the development trend of the industry. (Edited by Sun Huanjie, sunhj@xinhua.org)
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