After breather in Week 19, the pace of price slide picked up last week in Chinese domestic steel market and the prices slid down further. The Chinese Long Product Price Index CLPPI has gone down by 55 points or 0.9% to 6320 in Week 20 whereas the Chinese Flat Products Index CFPPI went down by 72 points or 1.2% to 5871. The overall price index CHISPI declined by 65 points or 1.1% to 6065.

Total output for the first four months reached 258.2 million tonnes, up 8.4 percent from the same period last year. Chinese steel mills are unlikely to take the bait of production pruning owing to inherent compulsions.