BEIJING, May 18 (Xinhua) -- China's steel market is recovering with the steel price steadily rising thanks to the improvement in the steel demand from downstream sectors, the Xinhua-run Economic Information Daily reported on Monday.
The steel prices in May are showing an uptrend with the improvement in the epidemic prevention and control and the economic activities gradually returning to normal, according to JLC Network Technology, a leading commodity information provider in China.
At present, the production and operation of the downstream steel industries have basically resumed, but the recovery of export-oriented industries will take time. It is expected that the downstream steel market will rebound in the second half of this year, especially in the field of infrastructure.
According to the Ministry of Transport, as of the end of April, the resumption rate of 625 key transportation construction projects in China exceeded 97 percent. There were 165 new highway and waterway projects with a total investment of 264.9 billion yuan (about 37.3 billion U.S. dollars).
Meanwhile, the downstream sectors such as the real estate, automobile and home appliance have also improved.
Statistics of cricchina.com, a real estate big data application service provider, show that the monthly sales value of Top 100 real estate enterprises in China amounted to 900.23 billion yuan, an increase of 17.2 percent month-on-month, and an increase of 0.6 percent year-on-year, the first positive year-on-year growth this year.
According to China Association of Automobile Manufactures (CAAM), sales in China's auto industry in April increased 0.9 percentyear-on-year, and the auto market is gradually picking up.
Most of March figures in the industry chain of the home appliance industry showed a year-on-year decline and a month-on-month growth, and the year-on-year decline in March narrowed compared to that in February, according to www.chinaiol.com, an industry chain research platform.
Although the demand for steel in the overseas market fell sharply due to the epidemic, a series of policies benefiting the steel consumption have been put in place and the expansion in the domestic consumption will, to some degree, offset the overseas decline. Under the circumstances of the strong performance of the raw materials and the rising spot steel prices, the foundation for the steel market's recovery will be further consolidated in the second quarter, said the report. (Edited by Hu Pingchao with Xinhua Silk Road, hupingchao@xinhua.org)
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