China's steel demand expected to rise in 2020: report

BEIJING - China's demand for steel is expected to register an uptick in 2020, according to a guild report.

The country's steel demand is forecast to climb 2 percent year-on-year to reach 890 million tons in 2020, said the China Iron and Steel Industry Association (CISA) in a report.

The steel demand of the construction and home appliance industries is expected to maintain expansion while that of the automobile, ship-building, container-manufacturing and machinery sectors will see negative growth in 2020.

China's steel market witnessed hot demand in 2019 thanks to the steady operation of infrastructure building, real estate and other downstream industries.

Steel consumption totaled about 880 million tons in 2019, up 6 percent year-on-year from 2018, the report estimated.