Paragraph entered by Atlantic migration, in order for SteelFirst articles to display correctly on Metal Bulletin.
This figure is lower compared to 2011’s year-on-year growth of 8.9%, due to the moderating of China’s economy, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
China’s GDP growth for 2012 was 7.8%, which was the slowest rate in the past 13 years.
Output in December 2012 totalled 57.66 million tonnes, or an average of 1.86 million tpd, down 2.9% from November, NBS said.
Previous estimates from China Iron & Steel Assn put the country’s crude steel output at 697.48 million tonnes for 2012.