(SEOUL=NEWSIS) Korea became the world’s fifth-largest steel producer in 2014, recording the highest growth rate for crude steel production among East Asian countries, including China and Japan.

According to the World Steel Association (worldsteel) on January 25, Korea ranked fifth globally for steel production last year, with 71,038,000 tons, a 7.5 percent increase year-on-year.

China is the largest steel producer, with 822 million tons, a 0.9 percent increase year-on-year. Japan produced 116 million tons of steel in 2014, posting a 0.1 percent increase from the previous year.

The global market share of Korean steel companies was 4.3 percent in 2014, a 0.3 percentage point increase year-on-year. China accounted for the largest share, with 49.5 percent in 2014, even though its market share decreased by 0.2 percentage points from the previous year. Apart from others (11.1%) and the EU (10.2%), Japan accounted for 6.7 percent of the global market share in 2014. It was followed by the United States (5.3%), India (5.0%), Korea (4.3%), Russia (4.3%) and the Ukraine (1.6%).

Steel producers around the world produced 1.66 billion tons of steel in 2014, a 1.2 percent increase year-on-year.

By region, Asia produced 1.13 billion tons of steel in 2014, a 1.4 percent increase year-on-year, while North America recorded 121 million tons of steel production, a 2.0 percent increase year-on-year. Regions that have shown a decrease in steel production include Europe (-0.1%), South America (-1.4%), Africa (-0.7%) and Australia/New Zealand (-1.8%).

ijoinon@newsis.com

Source Text

Source: Newsis (January 25, 2015)

** This article was translated from the Korean.