January 2012 | Seamless Steel Tube & Pipe
Caution and holidays render markets inactive: Asia Market Analysis
No early recovery in construction demand is expected, and demand from manufacturing is expected to be muted.
November’s Chinese IP report saw the country’s first monthly decline in manufactured output since the depths of the recession. This dealt a new blow to market confidence already undermined by falling property prices and fear of contagion spreading from the eurozone. Nothing that has happened at home or abroad in the past month has lifted the mood, and the approach of the holiday to celebrate the year of the water dragon has done no more than slow markets further. No early recovery in construction demand is expected, and demand from manufacturing is expected to be muted. The government has made it clear that it is prepared to see house prices fall further under its onslaught against property speculation and it continues to lecture the steel industry on the need for producers to merge and cut capacity. Although mill...
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