According to certain Chinese exporter that only a little of medium plates can be exported right now with a price of USD 480 per tonne FOB. The main destination for them remains to be South Korea.

Referring to HRC, he believed it is impossible to export any cargo for the moment due to the much higher price compared with the international offer. Main problem behind this is the relatively flourishing domestic market in China.

The trader noted that by comparison, the domestic market in South Korea is much limited, thus its exporters are struggling to export steel products and fortunately, its export orders for Q2 are filled for the moment.

Many Chinese traders rushed to import slab in March in the hope of domestic price increase in the future. Nevertheless, those traders just import a threat as a result. Further more, the value added tax stands as high as 17% thus, many importers just pay much close attention to the market, wishing to purchase some in a proper time.

Albeit some traders just hold an optimistic attitude to the steel market and as far as they concerned the bottom price on the international market seems to leave us away now.