The international steel market in June rose first. At the endof the month, the 124.1-point global steel benchmark price index fell 0.2% on aweek-to-week basis.

    Global crude steel production in May increased by 6.6%year-on-year. According to data from the International Steel Association, inMay of this year, the world’s 64 crude steel production counted in thestatistics of the World Iron and Steel Institute was 154.9 million tons, anincrease of 6.6% year-on-year and an increase of 9.62 million tons of output;the utilization rate of crude steel in the month of May was 77.7%. It increasedby 4.2 percentage points year-on-year and 1.0 percentage pointquarter-on-quarter. From January to May, global crude steel output was 72.92million tons, up 4.3% year-on-year, and crude steel output was 29.96 milliontons.

    Asian steel market: mixed. The benchmark steel price index of130.1 points in the region fell by 0.6% on a week-on-week basis (from rising tofalling), which was flat on a month-on-month basis and up 23.9% year-on-year.