SMM reported on September 4 that during the week (August 29-September 4, 2025), the total inventory of the two major stainless steel markets in Wuxi and Foshan showed a destocking trend, dropping from 928,800 mt on August 28, 2025 to 918,700 mt on September 4, down 1.09% WoW.

According to the SMM survey, the large-caliber inventory of SMM Ningbo HRC this week was 345,200 mt (as of August 20), with a WoW increase of 45,700 mt.This week, HRC prices fluctuated downward, with weekly spot price declines of 30-80 yuan/mt. The market trading atmosphere was poor during the week, with downstream end-users mainly adopting a wait-and-see approach. As of the afternoon close on August 22, the most-traded HRC 2510 futures contract closed at 3,361 yuan/mt.

Based on data compiled by SMM from the General Administration of Customs, in terms of export destinations, Indonesia ranked first in the cumulative total steel billet export volume from January to July 2025, with a total of 1.154 million mt, accounting for 15% of the total steel billet export volume. The Philippines followed with an export volume of 988,600 mt, accounting for 13% of the total. Turkey ranked third with 646,400 mt, accounting for 9% of the total.

According to the SMM survey, on August 20, the operating rate of blast furnaces at 242 steel mills was 86.27%, down 0.22% WoW.

As the Southeast Asian economy gradually recovers and the trend of manufacturing returning strengthens, steel demand in Malaysia is steadily recovering. It is expected that the apparent consumption of steel in Malaysia will continue to rise, with construction and infrastructure remaining traditional pillars. However, the share of sheets & plates consumption will increase year by year, driven by the development of manufacturing, electrical appliances, and the automotive industry. Currently, there is a temporary surplus in long product capacity in Malaysia, leading to increasingly fierce market competition; while flat product capacity is relatively scarce, highly dependent on imports. In the medium and long-term, Malaysia needs to accelerate the expansion of flat rolling production lines to enhance local self-sufficiency in flat products, thereby reducing reliance on imports. At the industrial structure level, companies with fully integrated production lines will become the core dominant force in the future Malaysian steel market. In comparison, other steel enterprises mainly using electric arc furnaces (EAF) need to accelerate their extension into the flat product sector to gradually achieve a value chain leap from traditional building material suppliers to mid-to-high-end manufacturing. Overall, Malaysia's steel industry stands at a critical crossroads of green transformation and structural adjustment. The industry faces three major challenges in the future: "green and low-carbon, capacity transformation, and regional competition." Only by clearly positioning themselves and promoting differentiated development can companies seize opportunities in regional integration and the reshaping of the global supply chain, achieving a strategic transformation from "capacity expansion" to "quality and efficiency."

The share of the investigated products exported to Japan in China's total exports initially rose before declining, but the overall proportion remained relatively small. As of the first six months of 2025, the ratio was just 2%, down YoY from 2024. According to customs data, China exported 127,100 mt of the investigated products to Japan in the first half of 2025, having a relatively limited impact on China's total exports of these products. In an extreme scenario, this could lead to a decline of 127,100 mt in China's total exports in 2026.   Data shows that as exports of the investigated products to Japan declined in 2025, Japan's ranking among export destinations dropped from 7th in 2024 to 12th. Meanwhile, countries such as Israel, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq moved up in the rankings. This indicates that Chinese exporters are actively diversifying risks by exploring new markets amid trade uncertainties.