SMU Data and Models
October 22, 2018
China’s Economy Slows, But Not Its Steel Production
Written by Peter Wright
The growth of the Chinese economy has slowed, but their steel production is growing almost three times as fast as the rest of the world.
Once each quarter, Steel Market Update publishes the official statistics for Chinese GDP, industrial production, consumer price inflation and fixed asset investment. Many analysts don’t believe these self-serving Party figures, but we include them in our reports because of the importance of China on the global steel scene, and these numbers are all that’s available. China’s economic statistics are never revised, which makes them suspicious. The U.S. routinely makes revisions back decades. Figure 1 shows published data released this week for the growth of GDP, industrial production and consumer prices through the third quarter of 2018. The GDP and industrial production portions of this graph are three-month moving averages (3MMAs).
