OREANDA-NEWS. March 02, 2011. China Steel Corporation (CSC) held the domestic pricing meeting for 2011 April-May shipments and announced the following statement, reported the press-centre of China Steel Corporation.

IMF upwardly revised 2011 global GDP growth to 4.4%. World Steel Association also estimated worldwide apparent steel use to grow 5.3% reaching historic record of 1.34 billion metric tons this year.

Affected by flood crisis in Australia and natural disasters in Brazil, global coking coal and iron ore prices continued to pick up, causing steel mills production cost to increase over USD 150/MT. To avoid losses, steel mills over the world were forced to raise steel prices.

CSC faced tremendous pressure from the increasing raw material prices in the first quarter, but following the principle of immediately reflecting NTD appreciations, 1Q average domestic selling prices had dropped below international prices. However, due to recent NTD depreciation and escalating international steel prices, most downstream industries had enjoyed increased in orders and product prices. To avoid operational losses, CSC had no choice but to reflect the increase in raw material cost and raise the weighted average prices of steel products by 12.1%.