SHANGHAI, Apr 20 (SMM) – China produced 78.98 million mt of crude steel in March, down 1.7% from the same month a year earlier, according to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) released on Friday.

This brought China’s total crude steel production in the first three months of 2020 to 234.45 million mt, up 1.2% from the same period last year.

China’s production of steel products dipped 0.1% year on year to 98.88 million mt in March, and the production in the quarter ended March was 1.6% lower than the same period the year before.