China’s production and import figures for August were completed yesterday with the belated release of crude steel output which showed a 0.9% fall from July to 58.75 million tonnes.
That was up however 14% from August of last year and continued the trend this year for crude steel output to be running around the 59 million tonnes a month mark (or between 1.9 and 2 million tonnes a day).
The 500,000 tonne drop from June was due to some mills closing down for routine summer maintenance.
Total output in the January-August period rose 11% to 469.3 million tonnes.
The country’s pig iron production in the January-August period rose 10% to 433.83 million tonnes, while iron ore production rose 23% to 818.93 million tonnes.
In August, China produced 127.55 million tonnes of iron ore, up 30% on year, and 53.95 million tonnes of pig iron, up 13%.
As reported last Friday, iron ore imports rose 8.3% in August to 59.09 million tonnes last month, up from 54.55 million tonnes in July and the most since March.
Imports were up 32% from 44.61 million tonnes in August of 2010.
China’s key commodity imports, including crude oil, copper and iron ore, all rose in August from the previous month, adding to evidence that the world’s second-largest economy was still going strong despite slackening growth in the west.
The steel production and iron ore import data tells us, once more, that the Chinese economy is travelling well, despite continuing predictions of doom and gloom from some analysts.
Iron ore inventories held at Chinese ports increased 27% to 98.6 million tonnes at September 2, the highest on record and enough for 34 days of steelmaking.
Imports rose 11% to 447.57 million tonnes in the first eight months of this year.
Steel-product exports dropped 5.6% to 4.19 million tonnes in August, but were up 6.5% in the eight months to the end of August.
The import price of iron ore in August was $US164.4 a tonne, up 37.4% from a year ago.
China also imported 104 million tonnes of coal in the first eight months of this year, down 1.4% in volume on the same period of 2010.
But that was up 11.4% in price to $US111.50 a tonne as the higher prices resulting from the supply problems caused by the Queensland floods hit hard.
But with the problems in Europe and the slowing US economy, China is entering what could be a tough five months or so.
China imported 21.04 million tonnes of crude oil in August, up 1.8% from the 20.66 million tonnes in July.
Domestic production rose 4.5% to 36.7 million tonnes.
Another important indicator is China’s imports of copper.
In August they were up for a third month in a row with an 11% rise in shipments of unwrought metal totalling 340,398 tonnes.
But that was still 10.5% under a year ago with year to date imports off 20.5%.
Imports of unwrought aluminium were up less than 1% in August, but down 2.3% over the year.
Soybean imports fell 15.7% in August to 4.5 million tonnes (with a 21% rise in the per tonne cost indicating that the fall might have been due to a surge in global prices in the month).
China’s industrial output rose 13.5% in August, which is what the surveys of manufacturing activity suggested.
Fixed-asset investment, a major driver of the country’s economic growth, rose 25% in the January-August period from a year earlier.
And bank lending rose slightly in August.
The central bank said loans totalled 548.5 billion Yuan (or $US85.8 billion) in August, up 9.3 billion Yuan year-on-year.
