Chinese steelmakers: from global growth to market pivot

According to Worldsteel, China accounted for about 53% of global steel output in 2024. This dominant position is the result of a multi-decade expansion; China produced 1 billion tons of crude steel last year, 10 times the level in 1996 -- the year it surpassed Japan.

With trade frictions mounting over the past decade - especially when Donald Trump has been US president -- China's steel output has broadly plateaued since about 2015.

A domestic construction downturn and slowing real-estate demand have also been factors. In recent years, Chinese steelmakers have been diversifying their export markets and turning to higher-end products.

 As our second chart shows, traditional export markets -- including North America, but also Asian neighbors such as South Korea and Vietnam -- have been contracting due to increased trade barriers. Meanwhile, countries in Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East have become fast-growing markets. (Canada, which imposed tariffs in 2024 to protect domestic producers, was especially notable for its decline last year.)

China's generational buildout of infrastructure and housing meant that whorl steel -- more commonly known as rebar, and specifically designed for reinforcing concrete buildings -- was in high demand. This has changed, especially since the pandemic.

 Rebar demand typically follows a seasonal pattern, with a lull around January and February for the New Year holiday. Construction demand trends show that 2021 had the sharpest post-holiday rebound for rebar use, possibly boosted by the resumption of projects that were put on hold during the initial Covid-19 shock. Since then, demand has stagnated in absolute terms, with 2025 the weakest year since 2020. Rebar production is less seasonal, but 2025 nevertheless stands out as a weaker year.

In our penultimate visualization, we combine rebar pricing and consumption with datasets on China's real-estate investment and construction output. This provides a more holistic view of how China's slowing property market has been intertwined and correlated with the steel industry before, during and after the pandemic-era shock and rebound.

Fortunately, even as rebar demand remains weak, China's mills are making steel for other applications. Hot-rolled steel coils, for instance, are used in construction, but also have manufacturing and automotive applications; cold rolled steel is also used in automaking, as well as appliances and furniture.

 A heat map for different products made at Chinese steel plants reveals that capacity utilization has been high and growing in these segments, even as the utilization rate for construction steel has remained persistently low since 2022.

Explore more visuals here: lull around January and February for the New Year holiday and China's slowing property market