World steel production dipped by 1.2% last year, but December’s production dropped by 24.3% as the downturn in demand gathered pace.

The World Steel Association said in a statement that 2008’s production of crude steel reached 1,329.7m tonnes in the 66 countries covered by its regular report. This was the second year that output has exceeded 1,300m tonnes.

China became the first country to produce more than 500m tonnes – its 2008 output of 502m t was 2.6% higher than the previous year. Other Asian countries also showed growth – Korea was up 3.8% and India 3.7%. But Japanese output fell 1.2%.

Output grew by 1.2% to 16.6m t in the Middle East.

But other regions of the world reported lower production. Output in the European Union fell 5.3% to 199m t. North American production fell 5.5% to 125m t. South American output dipped to 47.6m t.

Production of crude steel in the CIS showed a decrease of 8.1% to 114m t. Russia produced 69m t, down 5.4%, while Ukraine’s production dropped 13.1% to 37m t.

• [Editor:editor]