Global steel demand will grow by 7% to a little more than 1.622 billion mt this year and reach 

around  1.648  billion mt in 2018, the World Steel Association said Monday during its annual 

general meeting in Brussels. 

It  noted that China closed most of its outdated induction furnaces this year, a category that 

had not generally not been included in official statistics. 

But with the closures, demand from this sector of the market is now being met by mainstrea

m steelmakers and therefore captured in the 2017 official statistics. 

As a result, the nominal growth rate for steel demand in China increased to 12.4%, or 765.7 

million mt. 

But stripping out the statistical anomaly, the underlying growth rate of China steel demand 

would be 3% this year which would bring the corresponding global growth rate to 2.8% this 

year. In 2018, China's demand will be flat at 765.7 million mt, worldsteel said. 

The  overall global demand growth projections follow a 1% year-on-year increase in 2016, 

when demand was nearly 1.516 billion mt, and a 3% decline in 2015, when global demand 

totaled more than 1.498 billion mt. 

Worldsteel economics committee chairman TV Narendran told reporters at the meeting the 

expected growth in global steel demand was "encouraging," as a cyclical upturn broadene

d and firmed throughout the year. 

This led to better-than-expected performance for both developed and developing economie

s, although the Middle East/North Africa region and Turkey were exceptions.