This year, the domestic steel market, which has been in the doldrums for several years, is recovering strongly, but the direct export volume continues to decline. Experts said that it is necessary to re-examine the development pattern of China's steel industry. In the era of globalization, if the steel industry wants to develop, the key is to solve the problem of supply chain innovation, and integrate the advantages of resources.

Imbalance between supply and demand causes the world steel industry to enter the downturn. In this context, China's steel industry has also been included in the supply side reform of the top priority. This year, the domestic steel market, which has been in the doldrums for several years, is recovering strongly, but the direct export volume continues to decline. The current foreign trade in iron and steel is changing from direct exports to indirect exports." In the recently held Chinese (Binzhou, Boxing) International Metal Industry Exhibition and into the "The Belt and Road" China sheet metal industry summit, Chinese Federation of logistics and purchasing, vice president Cai Jin frankly.

Participating experts said that the global steel industry has now entered a period of adjustment, at the same time, the theme of China's steel development is happening, from "incremental, expansion" to "reduction, adjustment" changes. Despite the new market changes and the challenges of trade protection, globalization is still the trend of the times, and Chinese enterprises must use global vision to build a new pattern of the development of the steel industry.

The steel trade is shifting towards indirect exports

In the first 7 months of this year, the actual consumption of domestic steel was 426 million 560 thousand tons, an increase of 10.7%. At the same time, from the customs data show that in August, China's exports of steel 6 million 520 thousand tons, 440 thousand tons less than last month; 1-8 months, China's total exports of 54 million 470 thousand tons of steel, down 28.5%.

For the continued decline in steel exports, analysts pointed out that this is because China's steel prices continued to rise sharply, leading to export steel price competitiveness has weakened.

However, Cai Jin believes that the current iron and steel industry market is very active, although the scale and the past can not be mentioned in the same breath, but profits are continuing to rise, the steel market to pick up obvious signs. Despite the decline in steel exports, steel related construction, machinery, equipment and other related industries have developed rapidly. This shows that the current foreign trade in steel is changing from direct exports to indirect exports.

Data show that in the first 8 months of this year, China's mechanical and electrical products exported 5 trillion and 630 billion yuan, an increase of 13.4%, accounting for 57.1% of total exports. Among them, the export of machinery and equipment 1 trillion and 670 billion yuan, an increase of 14.9%.

In Cai Jin's view, with the world economy entering a new stage of growth, the steel business environment and industry trends change, we must use global vision to reshape the development pattern of China's steel industry.

The real worry is that trade frictions continue to increase and inhibit the export of steel. According to the Ministry of Commerce, over half of the trade remedy cases suffered in China last year were aimed at the steel sector.

In this regard, vice president, Chinese iron and Steel Industry Association Chinese Metallurgical Industry Planning Research Institute president Li Xinchuang said that although the prevailing trade protection measures, but in 2016 the global steel international trade volume is still a record high, reaching 4 tons, that is still the trend of globalization. He believes that the increase in trade friction is one of the strong signs of China's iron and steel industry, and must be faced with growing pains, we need to objectively and rationally look at this normal market change.

It is imperative to speed up international capacity cooperation

Experts generally said that in the face of domestic and international markets gradually warmer and short-term trade friction high, it is necessary to re-examine the development pattern of China's iron and steel industry.

Cai Jin said that the new changes of the current steel market to release the two signals: one is that the world economy has entered a new development cycle, the major economies to accelerate the process of economic recovery; two is the main driving force of a new round of economic growth is the infrastructure construction, it also brings new opportunities for the development of iron and steel enterprises.

Facing the market environment of "going out" in the steel industry, how to seize the opportunity is the key. Cai Jin pointed out that in the era of globalization, the iron and steel industry to develop, has been impossible to fight in isolation. In this process, the key to solve the problem of supply chain innovation is to integrate the advantages of resources. It needs to be emphasized that the goal of integration is not to occupy, but to share.

"China's iron and steel industry competitiveness depends on the vast consumer market, the most abundant human resources, the most complete industrial chain system, the latest and most advanced technology, as well as the fastest and most timely customer service. From this point of view, China's iron and steel market is still very promising." Li Xinchuang believes that the theme of China's iron and steel development is taking place by the "incremental expansion" to "change reduction and adjustment", but the reduction is not development, but to promote green development, in the reduction stage orderly, quality and standardization, service differentiation, intelligent, diversification and internationalization collaborative development, remodeling value chain.

In fact, while actively dealing with trade frictions and maintaining the export market, the domestic steel enterprises have been trying to internationalize their capacity. In recent years, many steel enterprises, such as Shougang Group, Anshan Iron and Steel Corporation, have been investing in factories overseas. In April 2016, the River Steel Group invested 46 million euros in the acquisition of the J May Dei Trvor steel plant, making the 7 - year - old steel mill a total profit in December 2016.