Overview for International Steel Market in 2003 and Outlook for 2004

摘要

Since early 2003, international steel market has been moving upwards steadily. The strong increase in China's import demand has spurred world steel sheet market to turn around continuously, while the increasing input cost including scrap and billet has been boosting world long product market to pick up once again. However, the upward trend was ever interrupted in the second quarter by a series of unexpected things, including sharp increasing stockpile in China, the breakout of war between USA and Iraq, unexpected sudden burst of SARS and etc. Just during this period, international steel market slipped sharply, seeing the steel price especially steel sheet price to drop substantially. But just from this June, when the war between USA and Iraq draw to end and SARS was controlled, international steel market recovered again with strong demand and increasing input costs, and some modest upward price momentum could well extend to the near future. From external surrounding perspective, economic condition in respective country and relevant trade policy are two key factors related with international steel market. In 2003, these two important topics have been playing great role in world steel market.