More mills included in sampling pool for China’s steel PMI

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Among them are major steelmakers such as Hebei Iron & Steel, Nanjing Iron & Steel and Tonghua Iron & Steel, the China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing (CFLP), which publishes the index, said at an industry conference over the weekend.

A majority of the newly included mills are small to medium-sized steelmakers, including Shanxi province’s Haixin Steel, a private mill with 6 million tpy of steelmaking capacity.

“We are expanding the pool of sample mills to ensure that the steel PMI could be more representative of the market, and could play a more important role in monitoring and forewarning for the steel industry,” Wang Jianzhong, secretary-general of CFLP, said at the conference.

The steel PMI is published by CFLP on the first day of every month to indicate movement in the steel market.

The index for December was 47.7 points. It was calculated based on data from 108 mills, including eight small to medium-sized mills that joined the sampling pool in October 2013.