The latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics show that in August, steel production reached 116.52 million tons, an increase of 11.4 percent year-on-year. Among them, the output of steel bars was 18.779 million tons, down 1.7% year-on-year; The output of medium and thick wide steel strips was 18.012 million tons, an increase of 33.2%.
Industry insiders believe that rebar, as a typical representative of real estate and building materials steel, compared with the medium thick and wide steel strip used in manufacturing steel, the proportion and growth rate are shrinking. Benefiting from the improvement of the competitiveness of China's manufacturing industry, the enthusiasm of relevant enterprises to "go to sea" is getting higher and higher, indirectly driving the strong growth of steel exports, effectively alleviating the impact of the decline in demand in the real estate field.
The latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics show that in August 2023, the output of steel bars was 18.779 million tons, down 1.7% year-on-year; The cumulative output from January to August was 156.028 million tons, an increase of 1.9% year-on-year. In August, the output of thick and wide steel strips was 18.012 million tons, an increase of 33.2%. The cumulative output from January to August was 135.752 million tons, an increase of 12.0%.
The structure of steel consumption has been greatly optimized, and the dependence on real estate has decreased. Citic Construction and Investment research report shows that behind the high toughness of steel production and demand is the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry, the rapid development of high-tech industries, new energy and new infrastructure, and the resonance of multiple factors such as the high growth of steel exports, reflecting the substantial optimization of China's steel consumption structure and the decline in dependence on real estate. Benefiting from the upgrading and competitiveness of China's manufacturing industry, the enthusiasm of domestic manufacturing enterprises to "go to sea" is getting higher and higher, indirectly driving steel exports to remain strong. "Going to sea" has become the second growth curve to pull the total demand for steel, effectively easing the impact of the decline in demand in the real estate field.
Zeng Liang, a senior researcher at the steel network, told the China Securities Journal that since this year, the real estate industry with a large demand for steel has been operating under pressure. From January to August, the national real estate development investment fell 8.8 percent year on year, the housing construction area of real estate development enterprises fell 7.1 percent year on year, and the newly started housing area fell 24.4 percent. From the perspective of real estate sales, from January to August, the sales area of commercial housing fell by 7.1% year-on-year. In this context, the supply and demand of the steel industry still maintain a certain resilience. With the continuous optimization of the industrial structure, the steel demand structure has significantly changed, the demand for construction steel has declined, and the demand for sheet metal varieties used in manufacturing and exports has increased significantly.
