Global steel demand has been better than previously expected in 2020, and the outlook for 2021 presented by world steel is upward.

In the previous outlook presented by world steel last October, steel demand was expected to decline by 2.4% compared to 2020. The institute confirmed on Tuesday that the decline was only 0.2 percent and demand was 1.7 billion tons.

Despite the catastrophic impact of the epidemic on people’s lives and livelihoods, the global steel industry had the chance to end 2020 with only a slight reduction in steel demand. This was due to China’s strong and astonishing recovery; With a growth of 1/9 percent. In the rest of the world, steel demand fell by as much as 10 percent.

This year, steel demand is expected to improve by 5.8 percent and in 2022 by 2.7 percent. While the numbers and statistics look positive, it should be noted that developed economies are not expected to fully reach 2019 steel consumption levels by the end of 2022.

India is expected to have the fastest recovery in 2021, with demand of almost 20% over last year. Turkey was also the only major consumer of steel, which saw a 13% improvement in demand in 2020 due to a sharp decline in 2019. In 2021, Turkish demand will continue to grow rapidly to 18.7%.

It is clear that the trend in developed economies will be more challenging. The United States is expected to see demand improve by up to 8.1 percent over the previous year, following an 18 percent decline in 2020. German steel demand will improve to 9.3% after falling 11.6%.

Currently, most global markets are suffering from supply shortages for a number of reasons, and some believe that these shortages will gradually decrease in the second half of the year; Because the market, although slowly, is improving

(Kallanish Steel Weekly, 20 April 2021)