Construction rebar and hot-rolled coil futures in China rose for the seventh straight session on Tuesday, boosted by firm consumption outlook even as data showed that the country reported a sharp drop in factory gate prices last month.
The October contract of rebar on the Shanghai Futures Exchange ended up 0.4% to 3,464 yuan ($488.42) a tonne.
Hot-rolled coil, used in the manufacturing sector, edged up 0.3% to 3,333 yuan per tonne.
The producer price index (PPI) fell 3.1% from a year earlier, China's National Bureau of Statistics said, compared with a 2.6% fall tipped by a Reuters poll and a 1.5% decline in March. The decline in April's PPI marks the sharpest drop on an annual basis in four years.
But on a monthly basis, prices of steel and nonferrous products dropped at slower paces, with the fall in ferrous metals smelting and processing prices narrowing by 0.3 percentage points.
Demand of construction used steel products have surpassed the same period last year fuelled by domestic stimulus and quickly resuming property and infrastructure projects, Huatai Futures wrote in a note.
"It is peak season for steel consumption now and (we) expect it will maintain relatively high level in near term," it added.
Benchmark iron ore futures on the Dalian Commodity Exchange, for September delivery, closed up 1.0% to 638 yuan ($89.96) a tonne.
The most-traded June contract for stainless steel fell 0.9% to 13,435 yuan per tonne.
Spot prices of iron ore with 62% iron content for delivery to China was unchanged from previous session at $88.8 yuan a tonne on Monday.
Dalian coking coal jumped 2.7% to 1,115 yuan a tonne and coke rose 0.3% to 1,741 yuan a tonne.
The world's top listed miner BHP Group said on Tuesday it had made its first yuan-denominated sale of iron ore to China Baoshan Iron & Steel Co Ltd, known as Baosteel, and would explore using blockchain for such transactions in future.
China announced on Tuesday a new list of 79 US products eligible for waivers from retaliatory tariffs imposed at the height of the bilateral trade war, amid continued pressure on Beijing to boost imports from the United States.
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