After entering the third quarter, domestic crude steel demand has a large reversal, from the first half of the larger growth, to a sharp contraction, resulting in the first three quarters of crude steel apparent consumption from rising to decline, which is the first decline for many years.According to statistical data calculation, from January to September 2021, the apparent consumption of crude steel in The country is about 761.36 million tons (excluding imports of billets and rough forgings, the same below), down 0.3% year on year, compared with 10.5% year-on-year growth in the first half of this year, a sharp drop of more than 10 percentage points.Analysis of the main factors of the sharp contraction of domestic crude steel demand:

First, macroeconomic growth dropped sharply.According to statistics, in the first quarter of 2021, THE GDP grew by 18.3% year-on-year, 7.9% year-on-year in the second quarter, and only 4.9% year-on-year in the third quarter, also down by 13%.At the same time, the growth rate of national fixed asset investment and the output of important consumable steel products fell sharply, and some products, such as automobiles and construction machinery, also fell sharply.

Second, the statistics of crude steel output and imports declined.According to statistics, january-September 2021 accumulative total, the national crude steel production year-on-year growth rate by 11.8% in the first half of the year, fell to 2% year-on-year growth in the first three quarters, including the statistical output of crude steel in September year-on-year decline of 21.2%, the year-on-year decline in the third quarter of about 13%, its decline unprecedented.In addition, according to customs statistics, from January to September in 2021, the country imported 10.716 million tons of steel, down 28.9% year on year, including September imports of steel down 56.5%.

The third is a substantial increase in steel exports.In the case of constant amount of new resources, the more crude steel exports (steel export translation), the less its apparent consumption.According to customs statistics, from January to September 2021, the country exported 53.024 million tons of steel, up 31.3% year on year.After entering the third quarter, although the relevant departments introduced measures to curb, but steel exports are still substantial growth.Among them, the export of steel in September grew 28.5% year on year.

It needs to be pointed out that, although the growth rate of the apparent consumption of crude steel in the third quarter of this year is from up to down, but considering the substantial growth of the national steel export since this year, the total demand for crude steel is still growing.According to preliminary estimates, from January to September 2021, the total demand for crude steel in China will increase by about 1.5% year-on-year.

On the other hand, as macroeconomic growth slowed too fast in the third quarter, authorities are expected to introduce some incentive measures to sprint for the fourth quarter to ensure the achievement of the annual target.Affected by its, the fourth quarter national steel demand growth is expected to rebound.