The total volume of steel exports has been continuously declining, while port departures in Guangdong and Guangxi have surged! What has happened in the export market?

• Weekly steel port departures have fallen below the 2024 median

Weekly steel port departures have fallen below the 2024 median. According to SMM statistics, as of March 24, 2025, China has faced 124 anti-dumping policies since 2024. The increase in anti-dumping cases has exacerbated the difficulties in China's steel exports. After the "rush to export" wave ended in September and October last year, steel exports experienced a decline. Following Trump's announcement of a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum products from all countries, steel exports reached another peak under the stimulus, then declined again. As of March 21, 2025, according to SMM shipping data, the total port departures from Chinese ports were 2.3614 million mt, down 11% MoM, falling below the median of last year's steel exports.

Data source: SMM Steel Panorama Shipping

• Affected by Ramadan, some countries reduced steel imports from China, while others saw increases.

Since March, Indonesia, India, Thailand, and Vietnam have seen significant MoM reductions in steel exports from China. On one hand, these countries issued more anti-dumping investigations against China's steel products in 2024. On the other hand, March is the Ramadan period for India, Indonesia, and Thailand, and the traditional holiday has led to a sluggish steel import market and slowed local procurement demand. For Vietnam, on February 21, the Vietnamese authorities announced that temporary tariffs on HRC from China would be imposed starting March 7, which boosted China's steel exports in February. However, by March, narrow coils could not be exported, leading to a 27.79% MoM decline in overall exports.

Table 1: Countries with significant MoM reductions in China's steel exports, January-February 2025 (mt)

Data source: SMM Steel Panorama Shipping

While some countries reduced steel imports, many others increased their imports from China in March. Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and Malaysia were the countries with significant MoM increases in steel exports from China.

Table 2: Countries with significant MoM increases in China's steel exports, January-February 2025 (mt)

Data source: SMM Steel Panorama Shipping

• Impact of Vietnam's anti-dumping measures: Since March, China's steel exports have concentrated in southern ports.

The Vietnamese authorities announced the imposition of temporary anti-dumping duties on HRC from China starting March 7. Due to shipping schedule constraints, since March, China's steel export ports have been more concentrated in Guangdong and Guangxi, with port departures from these two regions increasing by 58.89% MoM. Meanwhile, northern ports saw varying degrees of decline, with Tianjin New Port dropping by 46.71%.

Figure 1: Steel port departure data from northern and southern ports, February-March 2025 (mt)

Data source: SMM Steel Panorama Shipping

• China's steel exports may continue to decline in April.

According to the SMM survey, affected by anti-dumping measures, reductions in HRC exports to Southeast Asia are more pronounced, while exports of products not subject to anti-dumping, such as slabs, wire rods, billets, sections, and wide coils, have increased. Considering that steel mills generally have certain export quotas, the impact of anti-dumping on traders is greater than on steel mills.

Data source: SMM

Overall, the main export entities' order-taking situation has been moderate. The export reductions to Vietnam and some countries during Ramadan have been offset by increases to Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and Malaysia. Therefore, China's steel exports in March may not see a significant MoM reduction. However, considering that many traders have recently reported that the main export varieties and order-taking situation are not optimistic, this data may emerge in late April. SMM predicts that steel exports in April may decline by 10%-15% MoM.