BEIJING: China likely produced around 1.02 billion metric tons of crude steel last year, a state-backed steel association said late Friday. The world’s largest steel producer manufactured approximately 1.018 billion tons of crude steel in 2022.

The country’s crude steel output stood at 952.14 million tons in the first 11 months of 2023, a 1.5% gain from a year earlier, official data showed.

Meanwhile, the apparent crude steel demand last year will come in at around 940 million tons, with a mild annual decrease, an official from the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA) said at an internal member meeting, according to a statement on CISA’s WeChat account, without specifying the exact figure.

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The country’s statistics bureau is due to release the annual output data for industrial metals this Wednesday.