OREANDA-NEWS. January 27, 2014. China Steel Corporation (CSC) held the domestic pricing meeting for 2014 March shipments and announced the following statement: From global economy perspective, Euro Zone’s manufacturing sector gains momentum.

The depreciation of Euro spurs the growth in export. Business and consumer confidences increase. The economy is recovering stably. The US economy has performed well which leads to FED earlier QE tapering, but will still maintain low interest rate so as not to impede economic growth. Due to the government’s commitment to deepen the reform in economy, turbulence in China’s financial Market intensifies.

The growth of investments slows down. But subsequent stimulus and supporting measures are expected to mitigate the risk of slowdown in growth in the short term. With global economy on an uptrend, Taiwan’s export order has grown for five months in a row. The stock market is hot and domestic demand warms up. Many institutions have revised up GDP growth forecast for 2014.

Supported by high International scrap and iron ore prices during the winter, U.S. and Europe mills raised steel prices to reflect costs. Along with the recovery in demand in steel-using industry, steel prices are expected to be on upward trend. Asia steel market is encouraged by Japanese mills’ price increase which enhances end users’ confidence. Steel prices in China remain stagnant in the short time, but the restocking after Chinese New Year is expected to boost demand due to low inventory level.

With the depreciation of NTD and increases in international steel prices, steel export order is better than expected in domestic downstream industries. Export and domestic prices are increasing. In order to reflect the current market prices while maintaining the competitiveness of customers, CSC has decided to raise steel prices moderately for HRC, CRC and EG by an average of 1.2% or NT\\$ 236/MT.