Battle Lines Drawn As Self Interest Rules 

With regard to the health of the world economy, a popular saying over many decades has been: “When America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold”. Nowadays, China´s influence over global steel is so enormous that any sign of ill-health in China´s steel consumption spells bad news for steel markets everywhere. The proof of which has been seen in the past two years when a collapse in the Chinese property market has prompted a significant fall-off in domestic steel demand. This in turn has forced Chinese manufacturers to offer their surplus material to the export market at reduced prices. In this year alone, Chinese exports have increased by almost 30% on last year´s level and are presently.