BEIJING, May 17 (Reuters) - China's crude steel output in April fell 2.6% from the previous month and dropped 7.2% from the previous year, statistics bureau data showed on Friday, missing expectations.
Many market participants had forecast a monthly rise, citing improved downstream demand and profitability that encouraged steelmakers to ramp up production last month.
China, the world's largest steel producer, manufactured 85.94 million metric tons of crude steel last month, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed.
That represents an average daily output of 2.86 million tons, versus 2.85 million tons in March and 3.09 million tons in April 2023.
April is a shorter month than March by one day, which some analysts said could explain the lower monthly output.
In the first four months of 2024, China produced 343.67 million tons of crude steel, down 3% year on year.
Output in May will likely pick up thanks to more production resumptions among mills driven by resilient demand and improving consumption prospectsanalysts said.
"Given that total output in the first four months is already seeing an obvious decline, we expect this year's annual output will be no higher than the 2023 level even without a nationwide government-mandated production restriction," said Chu Xinli, a Shanghai-based analyst at China Futures.
China's state planner, which announced in early April that it would continue to manage crude steel output in 2024, has yet to unveil details on the timing and scale of production limits. (Reporting by Amy Lv and Emily Chow; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Jamie Freed)
