According to statistics released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) of China, China’s crude steel output fell by 6.9% year on year to 86.55 million tons, indicating continued pressure on steel demand, largely due to significant declines in real estate investment and new construction starts.

Meanwhile, pig iron production also had a year-on-year decrease of 3.3% to 74.1 million tons. In contrast, steel product output increased by 3.4% year on year to 127.4 million tons.

In the first five months of this year, China’s crude steel output was down by 1.7% year on year to 431.6 million tons, and pig iron output had a slight decrease of 0.1% to 362.7 million tons. However, steel product output for the period rose by 5.2% to 605.8 million tons.