By C.R.
...The collapse in the price of steel (click here) is mainly the result of falling demand and, until recently, rising production in China, says Edwin Basson of the World Steel Association, an industry group. Between 2000 and 2014, global production doubled from around 800m tonnes to around 1.6 billion tonnes a year, mainly driven by rising output in China. Until 2014, Chinese demand rose at approximately the same rate as its steel mills could produce, meaning that the impact on the rest of the world was limited. But as its construction boom came to an end, demand sagged, prompting the country’s state-owned steelmakers to sell their growing surpluses on foreign markets. Exports of steel from China increased from 45m tonnes in 2014 to 97m tonnes last year—marking a bigger rise than Germany’s entire output of the past year: 43m tonnes. This has triggered demands from rival firms for protection, from what they see as dumping....
