Economic Conditions in China’s Stainless Steel Export Destinations

When compared with January, the manufacturing PMI of major destinations of China’s stainless steel basically stayed in the contraction range in February. India's performance was still outstanding, whose PMI had stood above 55 for six consecutive months. According to SMM survey, India is an emerging market that Chinese stainless steel traders will focus on tapping into in 2023. In addition, Italy has also recovered. After the natural gas crisis has been eased, factories in Europe have resumed production. However, due to the increasingly stringent anti-dumping policies in Europe against China’s stainless steel, the subsequent increase in exports to Europe may still be relatively limited.

In February, Vietnam's PMI also returned to above 50, entering a recovery cycle. In last December, India accounted for as high as 15% of China’s total stainless steel exports, whereas the proportion of South Korea and Turkey stood at 11.1% and 7.17% respectively. The exports to Vietnam also maintained a large share of 10%.