On July 18, the spot steel market was dominated by price increases, and all major futures market products rose, including rebar and hot-rolled coils, which rose by about 0.8%, iron ore, coke, and coking coal, which rose by 0.38%, 1.23%, and 2.55%. As steel mills’ profits improved, blast furnace iron output increased, and raw material consumption increased.
Recently, the price of raw materials has risen significantly, which has supported steel costs, but the end customers are generally not willing to accept high-priced resources in the off-season.
The Ministry of Commerce talks about China-US economic and trade relations: artificial “decoupling” is impossible
Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao said at a series of thematic press conferences on “High-quality Completion of the 14th Five-Year Plan” held by the State Council Information Office on July 18 that China-US economic and trade relations have gone through ups and downs, and the two sides remain important economic and trade partners to each other.
Since 2018, the US unilateralism and protectionism have risen, constantly provoking economic and trade frictions, and a series of actions have seriously impacted and interfered with the normal economic and trade cooperation between China and the United States. Although the share of China-US trade has declined, bilateral trade has remained stable overall. In 2024, the volume of China-US trade in goods and the scale of China-US trade in services will reach US$688.3 billion and US$155.8 billion, respectively, an increase of 18% and 34.7% over 2017.
Facts have proved that China-US economic and trade cooperation has a solid economic and public opinion basis, and artificial “decoupling” cannot be removed.
The average daily molten iron output of steel mills’ blast furnaces increased to an 8-week high, with year-on-year growth expanding
Mysteel surveyed 247 steel mills and found that the blast furnace operating rate was 83.46%, an increase of 0.31 percentage points from last week and 0.83 percentage points from last year; the blast furnace ironmaking capacity utilization rate was 90.89%, an increase of 0.99 percentage points from last week and 1.27 percentage points from last year; the steel mill profit rate was 60.17%, an increase of 0.43 percentage points from last week and 28.14 percentage points from last year; the average daily molten iron output was 2.4244 million tons, an increase of 26,300 tons from last week. With the improvement of steel mill efficiency, the blast furnace molten iron output increased this week, and the consumption of raw materials and fuels increased.
The price of coking coal has increased significantly recently, and coke is still expected to increase next week. The price trend of iron ore is strong, and the cost of steel is supported, which is beneficial to the price trend of steel.
The CPPCC National Committee held a symposium on the analysis of the macroeconomic situation in the first half of 2025
On July 18, the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference held a symposium in Beijing to analyze the macroeconomic situation in the first half of 2025. Wang Huning, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, attended and delivered a speech.
He said that since the beginning of this year, in the face of a complex and changing international environment and increasing instability and uncertainty, the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core has strengthened its overall leadership over economic work, adhered to the general tone of work of seeking progress while maintaining stability, fully implemented the new development concept, unswervingly managed its own affairs, unswervingly expanded high-level opening up, focused on stabilizing employment, enterprises, markets, and expectations, and promoted the economy to withstand pressure and rise to the challenge, so as to achieve overall stability in economic operation, steady improvement, continued boosting of social confidence, and stability in the overall social situation.
