BEIJING/MANILA: Steel futures in China fell on Tuesday, with hot-rolled coils dropping for the fourth straight session and steel rebar for the third, dented by lean export data as demand for the key industrial material remains soft overseas.
The most-traded January contract for hot-rolled coils on the Shanghai Futures Exchange, used in the manufacturing sector, closed down 1.4% at 3,842 yuan ($562.32) per tonne.
Construction-used rebar dropped 0.9% to 3,719 yuan a tonne.
The fall in prices came after China reported a 26.6% drop in August steel products exports on an annual basis.
"Global steel production and consumption growth will slow in 2020-2021 compared with 2017-2019," Fitch Solutions wrote in a note, adding that China would remain the driving force behind overall steel consumption.
Fitch Solutions expected the steel market to be in a slight surplus of 1.1 million tonnes in 2020, compared with a deficit of 16.7 million tonnes last year.
Benchmark iron ore futures on the Dalian Commodity Exchange, for January delivery, fell 1.6% to 844 yuan per tonne.
Prices for spot cargoes of iron ore with 62% iron content for delivery to China rose to $127.5 per tonne on Monday.
Dalian coking coal ended 1.8% lower and coke declined 1.9%. Stainless steel futures on the Shanghai bourse, for November delivery, rose 0.5% to 14,880 yuan a tonne.
Germany's steel industry needs state aid and deeper alliances to manage the shift toward green fuels for blast furnaces, Joerg Hofmann, head of Germany's largest union, IG Metall, told Reuters.
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