Stainless steel prices in China kept dropping over the past week because sellers sought to generate more sales to draw down their inventories amid a bearish outlook caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Nickel prices on the London Metal Exchange edged on but are still around their lowest in the past year-and-a-half, which put additional pressure on stainless steel prices.
The
three-month nickel contract on the LME ended Wednesday April 1's trading session at $11,288 per tonne, up by $37 per tonne from
a week earlier.
Domestic
Fastmarkets' weekly price assessment for
stainless steel cold-rolled coil 2mm grade 304 domestic, ex-whs China in the country's major market of Wuxi was 12,000-12,800 yuan ($1,690-1,803) per tonne including value-added tax on Wednesday, narrowing downward by 200 yuan per tonne from 12,000-13,000 yuan per tonne a week earlier.
The recovery of demand for stainless steel is slow due to subdued downstream industries.