On July 1, 2026, the China Iron and Steel Association released the half-year national steel foreign trade operation data, sorting out the overall import and export trend of China’s steel products from January to June. Driven by booming infrastructure investment in many African and Southeast Asian countries, the export of deep-processed construction steel products maintained steady growth. The structure of steel foreign trade kept optimizing, and high-value-added green coated plates became the core force driving export growth.

In the first half of this year, emerging economies including Tanzania, Kenya, Indonesia and Vietnam kept increasing investment in factories, logistics warehouses, affordable housing, roads and industrial plants. Local engineering companies had surging demand for prefabricated construction materials such as color steel sandwich panels, galvanized floor deck sheets, hot-dip galvanized coils and aluminum-zinc prepainted sheets. Statistics showed that China exported 42.16 million tons of finished steel products in the first six months, rising by 8.7% year-on-year. Among them, coated high-value-added steel sheets delivered outstanding export performance with a year-on-year surge of 16.3%, far exceeding ordinary steel bars and wires.

Industry experts analyzed that the steel capacity replacement and green low-carbon upgrading policies launched earlier this year have reshaped the domestic steel industry from the supply side. Many outdated, high-energy-consumption and high-pollution production lines have been phased out, while new intelligent coated steel production lines with low emissions have been put into operation in batches. This enables domestic steel manufacturers to meet increasingly strict low-carbon and anti-corrosion environmental standards overseas. Compared with European and American steel products, Chinese sandwich panels and deck sheets own prominent advantages in cost performance and stable supply, continuously lifting competitiveness in small and medium infrastructure projects across Africa.

Taking Tanzania as an example, the construction of local industrial parks and agricultural storage warehouses has entered a peak period. Local contractors prefer complete sets of prefabricated steel components imported from China. Many domestic steel trading companies have built local service teams, connecting clients via WhatsApp Business which is widely used locally. They provide integrated supporting services including customized cutting, moisture-proof packaging and full-container sea transportation, greatly shortening communication and delivery cycles, and steadily lifting the market share of Chinese construction steel in East Africa.

In terms of trade structure, China’s steel export transformation has achieved remarkable results. The proportion of low-value crude steel and billet exports keeps shrinking, while deep-processed finished steel accounts for over 78% of total steel exports. The industry has bid farewell to the old model of relying on export volume for revenue, and shifted to a development path driven by quality and benefits.

Relevant officials from the China Iron and Steel Association stated that in the second half of 2026, the association will cooperate with import and export chambers of commerce across provinces to hold multiple online and offline steel promotion exhibitions targeting African and Southeast Asian markets. It will focus on promoting green construction materials such as thermal insulation sandwich panels and galvanized profiled steel sheets, and continuously expand cross-border circulation channels for high-quality steel products.

Multiple industrial research institutions forecast that the global wave of low-carbon infrastructure investment will not fade in the short term. Exports of domestic coated sheets and building profiled steel will maintain strong growth for the whole year. With the deepening low-carbon transformation of the steel industry and continuous improvement of overseas local supporting services, China’s cross-border steel trade will maintain stable and high-quality development.

Source:

https://www.chinaisa.org.cn/gxportal/xfgl/industrynews/steel-trade-export-h1-2026-0702