The real turning of the steel market is estimated to be after the Spring Festival next year

Since November, although there has been no significant improvement in the domestic steel market, the prices are no longer falling as steeply as in October, and tend to be stable. Construction steel prices such as rebar and wire rod have stabilized and even rebounded slightly. The mentality of steel traders seems to be stable. He Yonghua, general manager of Shanghai Baoxia Material & Trading Development Co., Ltd., said in an interview with a reporter from China Metallurgical News that the current positive and negative factors affecting the steel market trend exist, so the price is in a pattern of ups and downs and deep downs. It is expected that during the year or even early next year, the entire market will not recover significantly and prices will continue to fluctuate and operate in the bottom area.

When He Yonghua analyzed the favorable factors, he was particularly concerned about the recent loosening of funds. He said that there are various signs that the current policy fine-tuning signal is increasingly clear, and now the situation of funding shortages are gradually eased, the central bank issued 10 billion one-year bill rate on the 8th from the previous period down 1.07 basis points to 3.5733%. Previously, the interest rate for the issuance of the latest 3-year central bank bill has also been lowered by 1 basis point. With the fine-tuning of the central bank’s monetary policy, the discount rate for this week has continued to fall, and the funding side has eased. For example, on November 10th, the monthly discount rate for Shanghai Huda was RMB 8.18, which was 2.73% lower than November 4.

He Yonghua said that the shortage of funds has been improved, which is a good thing for the steel market to stabilize, and the downstream steel industry has loose funds, which will drive demand for steel products. From some recent news, we can also see that, for example, the railway industry will invest 700 billion yuan this year to form a high-speed rail network; in the three years from 2010 to 2012, the scale of investment in rural power grids will reach about 300 billion yuan; from January to October this year, fixed-asset investment ( Excluding farmers, 24,156.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 24.9%; from January to October, investment in real estate development nationwide was 4992.3 billion yuan, an increase of 31.1% year-on-year. The total investment for construction projects is 5830.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.8%; the total planned investment for newly started projects is 20168.8 billion yuan, an increase of 24.1% year-on-year; the operating rate of affordable housing has reached 100%; etc. This shows that there is no obvious demand for steel products in the domestic market. The reduction will curb the falling market price of steel products.

When analyzing the market demand for construction steel, He Yonghua paid special attention to the market trend of high-strength steel bars with three or more grades such as seismic rebar. He read the “12th Five-Year Plan for Development of the Iron and Steel Industry” just announced, and is full of confidence in the market of high-strength steel bars and other steels. In the "12th Five-year Development Plan for Iron and Steel Industry," it is clearly stated that the application of high-strength steel bars should be increased. Supporting steel enterprises to implement technological transformation around the production and variety development of high-strength steel bars, improve product quality, ensure supply capacity, and improve the production and market distribution system of high-strength steel bars. Revise the steel standard for reinforced concrete, research and develop high-strength threaded reinforcement joint technology to meet the production requirements of high-strength threaded reinforcement. In the large and medium-sized cities across the country, 400 MPa and 500 MPa high-strength reinforced steel bars have been widely promoted to promote the upgrading and reduction of construction steel products.

He Yonghua said that the "Twelve Five-Year Development Plan for the Iron and Steel Industry" also proposed adapting to the trend of reducing steel consumption, upgrading hot-rolled rebar standards, and focusing on the development of high-strength steel rebar, seismic rebar, and high-strength wire rods of 400 MPa or more ( Hard line). Therefore, the potential market for high-strength steels such as earthquake-resistant steels in the future is quite large. At the same time, the “planning” clearly eliminates backward products such as Grade I rebar products and Grade II rebar products. This is the direction for the future development of the construction steel market and a major positive factor.

'Our company has not operated ordinary Grade II rebar for more than a year and specializes in high-strength threaded steel bars of 400 megapascals and above. We also operate anti-seismic steel bars since this year. He Yonghua told reporters that his company's seismic rebar operations are still doing well. Many customers learned that the company operated Jiangsu Yuhua's seismic rebar, they have called for telephone consultation, some end-users immediately purchase, just a few days have been sold More than 300 tons, a home customer is also ready to purchase 1,000 tons. The customer tested the seismic rebar of Jiangsu Yuhua for quality testing, and the Shanghai Municipal Civil Defense Engineering Quality Supervision Department performed the assessment, and all the quality was qualified. Some schools in Shanghai, Shanghai, nursing homes and other buildings all use seismic rebar, and the sales of seismic rebar in the future will become better and better.

Regarding the trend of the construction steel market during the year, He Yonghua believes that from the perspective of favorable and negative factors, the entire market is still difficult to pick up and the price fluctuates in the bottom region. From November to December, the current operating situation is maintained. Because after the season, the construction of outdoor construction projects in the northern regions will be affected, the demand for construction steel such as rebars and wire rods will be significantly reduced. Surplus resources will be diverted to the southern markets, and sales pressure will be difficult to ease. From the supply side, although some steel mills stopped production and maintenance, the output decreased, but due to the shrinking demand, the overall supply still exceeds demand, and the contradiction between supply and demand is still outstanding. In this situation, it is obviously impossible for the price to rise significantly. When the price falls to the bottom, at the edge of the production cost line, it will bottom out.

'The real warming of the steel market is estimated that after the Spring Festival next year, when the weather picks up, then the market price is expected to gradually rise. 'He Yonghua said.