Stainless steel cold-rolled coil prices kept flat in the Asian market last week, showing a calm market before the Lunar New Year holiday.

China’s market improved after the epidemic control measures were eased, while the market will only become predictable until the epidemic stabilizes. The quotations from China’s private steel mills rose last week, but the downstream market players said that the market demand is still slow with a limited price increase.

The LME nickel price dropped a lot to US$28,775/ton on January 5, but the fluctuating nickel price impacted little on stainless steel prices.