The impact of Chinese steel product prices based on the midstream industry chain

摘要

As a major importer and exporter of steel products, China has trade relations with many markets around the world. However, the development of the Chinese market in recent years has not been stable, and price fluctuations are frequent. To better understand the price trend of China's steel products, based on an adaptive neural fuzzy inference system and cluster analysis, this paper examines the price impacts on the Chinese import and export steel market from the perspective of the international mainstream market and steel products themselves. The study selected steel markets in 12 countries and regions and used daily data on the import and export prices from January 2009 to September 2017 to analyze eight steel products. The results show that in the mainstream market, Asian countries have a greater impact than non-Asian countries on China's import market, and developed countries have a greater impact than developing countries on China's export market. Among steel products, sheet steel products have the most significant impact on China's import and export markets. Based on the above results, this article gives some policy suggestions for monitoring and controlling the development of China's steel industry from an international perspective. When the price of imported products in the Chinese market increases, the government should add or change the import area. In addition, industry regulators should focus on products with large import volumes, such as flat products. When the proportion of imported products is too large, policies should be adjusted appropriately. In addition, the China Steel Industry Association should analyze the developmental trend of the international market in real time and provide timely assistance to related companies, especially when export products encounter issues, such as antidumping investigations in developed countries. Furthermore, steel enterprises should continue to strengthen the export of key products, for instance, by increasing the proportion of high value-added products such as cold rolled coils.