Chinese Steel Export Volume Reaches 34.21 Million Tons in Early 2026

May 9, 2026

The General Administration of Customs released the January-to-April trade data last week. Total finished steel exports landed at 34.214 million metric tons. That is a 9.7 percent drop compared to the same period in 2025. People in the trading desks from Shanghai to Singapore noticed it immediately. For the last two years, Chinese mills kept pushing volume westward. That trend just reversed.

I talked to a couple of procurement managers in Vietnam and Turkey over the weekend. They said the 9.7 percent decline wasn’t a surprise. The warning signs showed up last December. Chinese regulators had been signaling a shift away from low-margin, high-volume exports. The domestic market was bleeding margins on rebar and wire rod. So the China Iron and Steel Association quietly encouraged members to prioritize higher-value products. That is exactly what happened.

Why the Drop Matters More Than the Headline

Let’s break down the 9.7 percent figure. It is not uniform across all product categories. According to trade data compiled by Mysteel, hot-rolled coil exports to Vietnam fell nearly 18 percent in the first quarter. But tinplate and coated sheet exports to Mexico and the Middle East actually held steady. Some even rose slightly. So the headline masks a product-level rotation.

The bigger story is about destinations. exports to the European Union dropped roughly 14 percent. The Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism is starting to bite. Chinese mills now have to purchase CBAM certificates for embedded carbon. That adds roughly 25 to 35 euros per ton. For a standard HRC cargo, that wipes out most of the price advantage over Turkish or Indian material. European buyers are quietly shifting term contracts away from Chinese origin.

Southeast Asia tells a similar story. Thailand imposed anti-dumping duties on Chinese galvanized sheet in February. The duties run between 12 and 28 percent depending on the mill. Indonesia followed with a safeguard tariff on flat products. These measures take time to filter through supply chains. But the 9.7 percent export decline suggests the cumulative effect is real.

The Domestic Push-Pull

You cannot understand the export drop without looking at what is happening inside China. The construction sector remains weak. Property developers are still deleveraging. That normally pushes mills to export more, not less. So why the opposite trend?

Two reasons. First, manufacturing demand held up better than expected. Automotive sheet orders from BYD and Geely increased in the first quarter. Home appliance production for export also stayed strong. That absorbs capacity that would otherwise go to export markets. Second, the government introduced a voluntary export record-filing system for certain steel products in January. It is not a formal quota. But mills know that aggressive low-price exports will invite more anti-dumping cases. They are self-disciplining to avoid escalation.

A steel trader in Tianjin told me last week: “We can still sell rebar to the Philippines at US$520 per ton CFR. But after freight and domestic VAT paperwork, the netback is barely above production cost. Why bother? We would rather run the blast furnace at 80 percent and hold inventory.”

The Scrap Connection

There is a secondary effect that scrap suppliers in Europe and the US should watch. When Chinese finished steel exports drop by 9.7 percent, the impact on raw materials is not linear. Chinese integrated mills use blast furnaces running on iron ore and coking coal. They do not consume much scrap. But the mini-mills in Southeast Asia and South Asia that buy Chinese billets do get affected.

Turkey and India have been picking up more European and US scrap in recent weeks because Chinese semi-finished material became less competitive. A scrap dealer in Rotterdam mentioned that prices for HMS 1&2 (80:20) crept up US$12 per ton in April. That is directly linked to the tighter supply of Chinese alternatives.

What Buyers Should Do Now

If you are a downstream manufacturer in Europe or the Americas, the 9.7 percent drop means you cannot rely on Chinese spot quotes as a pricing cap anymore. Term contracts with domestic mills or diversified origins (India, Brazil, South Korea) look more attractive. The days of calling three Chinese traders and getting instant FOB offers for 5,000 tons of rebar are fading.

One procurement director at a German automotive supplier put it this way: “We used to keep less than two weeks of steel on hand. Now we are building up to 45 days. The cost of holding inventory is lower than the cost of a line shutdown because a cargo got diverted or a mill reversed an export offer.”

Looking at the Rest of 2026

Expect the downward trend to continue through the summer months. June and July are typically slower for export shipments due to typhoon seasons in southern Chinese ports. And with domestic infrastructure stimulus expected to kick in during the second half of 2026, mills will have less incentive to sell overseas at thin margins.