In Depth: China’s Steelmakers Look Abroad as Domestic Pressures Mount

It wasn’t the drop in production that alarmed China’s steel industry this year. It was that demand fell even faster.

By the end of September, Chinese mills had produced 746 million tons of crude steel, down 2.9% from a year earlier. But domestic consumption slumped 5.7% to just under 649 million tons, a much steeper decline. The imbalance sent a clear message: in the world’s largest steel-producing nation, the core problem isn’t output. It’s overcapacity, with too few buyers at home to absorb what’s being produced.