According to the notice from the World Steel Association (worldsteel), in spite of the slowdown in economic growth, global demand for crude steel was expected to grow in 2019.

Edwin Basson, the Director General of the worldsteel, said that global steel demand was expected to grow by at least 1.4% this year and this growth was only a conservative estimate. Chinese steel consumption could easily increase by 1-2% and drive the global demand to grow by 2%.

In addition, he also mentioned that global finished steel production totaled around 1.6 billion tons last year, which was insufficient to meet the estimated demand this year. Therefore, steel mills should increase the target production in 2019.