From November 12th to 14th, the 2018 (eighth) Asian Steel Forum was held in Seoul, South Korea. Representatives of steel industry experts from Asian countries and regions have conducted extensive discussions on hot issues such as steel import and export, industry policies, the fourth industrial revolution and trade measures. Participants said that weak domestic demand and trade friction are important challenges for the development of the current steel industry, and the abuse of trade protection measures is bringing about many negative effects.

“Currently, the biggest problem facing the Korean steel industry is that steel consumption has stagnated.” Son Jung Soo, executive director of Steel & Steel in South Korea, said that in addition to the poor performance of domestic downstream industries such as home appliances, automobiles and ships, the demand growth has been increased. The restrictions also led to a sharp drop in all exports of steel products to the US market this year. This poses more challenges for Korean steel companies that expect to export their digestion capacity. At the same time, due to insufficient domestic demand and export volatility, South Korea's imports of steel products from Japan and China are also decreasing this year.

Steel consumption in Taiwan is mainly for the construction, manufacturing and export of the island. “The demand for steel for the construction industry and the manufacturing industry has been saturated and has been slowly declining over the past 20 years. The new production in the later period needs to be exported to digest,” said Jinchuan, chief analyst of the Taiwan Metal Industry Research and Development Center. Taiwan's steel exports are mainly galvanized coils, hot-rolled and cold-rolled. Faced with the challenges of current industrial structure, enhanced steel trade barriers and strong environmental protection demands, the steel industry structure needs to be integrated and upgraded, innovative materials, processing and products. Designed to increase the added value of products, enhance competitiveness, and strengthen the exchanges with the industry in various regions to jointly prevent the occurrence and upgrading of trade friction.

Indonesia's economic growth is relatively good, steel demand is expected to remain at a high level, and the current low per capita consumption of steel in Indonesia also indicates that it has huge market potential. In view of the growing domestic demand, some steel companies want to increase production capacity. However, Jati Santiono, president of KHI Pipeline Indonesia, said that there is almost no upstream sheet supplier in Indonesia, and local billet demand is more dependent on imports. At the same time, the supply and demand gap of many steel products is large, and it needs to be supplemented by imports. This has provided more trading opportunities for the market.