MOSCOW (Sputnik) – Citing World Steel Association data, RIA Rating noted the first in 5 years annual decline in global steel production in 2015, dropping by 2.8 percent to close out the year at 1.6 billion metric tons. Decreased demand, growing competition and price declines are cited as the main reasons behind the weak output.
"Russia is likely to maintain its fifth place among producers and fourth place in terms of exports, although steel output is very likely to shrink in our country because the export channel is increasingly narrowing due to antidumping restrictions while the domestic market is not ready to increase consumption," RIA Rating experts said.
China maintained its 2015 leadership in steelmaking, increasing its global production share from 49.3 percent to 49.5 percent year-on-year, despite posting the first declines since 1981. Japan placed second with 5-percent output cuts, followed by India, one of the few countries to increase production.
RIA Rating experts see no major changes to this year’s top-10 despite continued production declines envisioned.
Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency is an international media group whose mission is to cover world events in a prompt, balanced, and unbiased manner. Rossiya Segodnya offers alternative views on key events in Russia and elsewhere. The agency operates a number of information resources, including RIA Novosti, RIA Real Estate, Prime, R-Sport, RIA Rating and InoSMI. Rossiya Segodnya is the news agency most commonly cited by the Russian media and is building the citation rate of its foreign brands, while leading in the Russian blogosphere and social media.
