[India] According to Pondrik Sandeep, Secretary of India's Ministry of Steel, India's steel consumption rose from 77 million mt in fiscal 2014-15 to 152 million mt in fiscal 2024-25. Speaking at the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in New Delhi, Pondrik said India's crude steel capacity is expected to reach 300 million mt in fiscal 2030-31 and further increase to 400 million mt in fiscal 2035-36. The summit also brought together steel producers, iron ore miners, and AI technology providers to discuss AI applications in the steel industry chain and potential cooperation opportunities.

More than 10 Vietnamese banks have announced lending-rate cuts and preferential credit packages since August, with several programs targeting SMEs, manufacturing and import-export businesses. Interest-rate reductions range from around 0.5% to 2.5% per year, while major banks including Agribank, BIDV, Vietcombank and VietinBank have launched preferential packages of VND50–70 trillion for priority sectors. The measures are expected to lower financing costs, improve cash flow and support working capital for steel producers and downstream businesses, particularly those involved in construction, manufacturing, exports and national infrastructure projects, providing additional support for domestic steel demand.

Taiwan’s Ministry of Finance initiated an anti-dumping investigation on August 14, 2026, into cold-rolled stainless steel flat products imported from Vietnam following a petition by Yieh United Steel and Tang Eng. The investigation covers shipments from July 2025 to June 2026, with the applicants alleging a dumping margin of up to 31.36%—a preliminary claim rather than a final determination. The case involves 20 Vietnamese enterprises, including Vnsteel, Posco VST, YGS Vina and Nam Thuan Phat, and could add further pressure to Vietnam’s stainless steel exports as trade-remedy actions in overseas markets continue to increase.

JPMorgan upgraded Aperam and Outokumpu from Neutral to Overweight, forecasting 2027 EBITDA of €757 million and €571 million respectively, 7% and 5% above market consensus, with price targets of €57 and €6.50 per share, implying 21% and 19% upside from August 10 closing prices. The key catalyst is the EU's new steel safeguard measures effective July 1, which cut stainless steel import quotas by 55–65%, reducing import penetration to approximately 15%, described by JPMorgan as a "game changer" for EU steel producers. The bank projects EBITDA growth of over 50% YoY for all three European stainless producers in 2026, accelerating to over 100% in 2027, outperforming carbon steel peers facing decarbonization capex pressures. Acerinox was upgraded from Underweight to Neutral, though its ~50% YTD share price gain leaves it approximately 11% above JPMorgan's new €16.10 December 2027 target price.

Provisional data from the Federal Statistical Office revealed that production in Germany's manufacturing sector grew by 0.2% month-on-month in June 2026, driven significantly by a 3.6% expansion in the automotive industry. The consecutive monthly growth offers a modest demand buffer for domestic flat steel producers facing an otherwise stagnant macroeconomic environment. However, industry groups warn that critically low water levels on the Rhine River could throttle supply chains and erase these gains in the third quarter.

[India] Affected by monsoon weather, sentiment in India's domestic steel and scrap market remained cautious, with buying activity largely dominated by need-based procurement. Demand from the infrastructure and manufacturing sectors continued to underpin the market, while steel mills and secondary steel producers remained watchful of finished steel demand and profit margins before initiating fresh purchases. In terms of prices, the ex-yard price of ship-breaking melting scrap in Alang fell by 3.15 USD/tonne from last Friday to 341.13 USD/tonne (32,500 INR/tonne). In northern Mandi Gobindgarh, the price of HMS 1&2 (80:20) scrap edged down by 1.05 USD/tonne (100 INR/tonne). Meanwhile, Bellary sponge iron PDRI price dipped slightly by 2.10 USD/tonne to 274 USD/tonne (26,100 INR/tonne), while Mumbai rebar prices inched up by 1.05 USD/tonne to 492 USD/tonne (46,900 INR/tonne).

The United Kingdom's anti-dumping duty on certain cold-rolled flat steel products originating from China and Russia expired on August 5, 2026, according to a notice from the UK's Integrated Online Tariff service. The expiry removes a trade-defence measure that had applied to imports of these products, potentially opening the door to renewed import flows from the two origins absent a review or extension. The move stands in contrast to the European Union's parallel tightening of steel trade defences during the same period, highlighting a divergence in post-Brexit UK trade policy from the EU's approach on certain product lines. No announcement of a renewal investigation was noted alongside the expiry notice. UK steel producers and downstream buyers are expected to monitor import volumes in the products' categories in the coming months for any material shift. The development is procedural in nature but carries commercial significance for UK cold-rolled coil market participants.

South Africa exported 123,310.23 tonnes of high-carbon ferrochrome in June 2026, down a modest 0.32% month-on-month but sharply lower — down 44.57% — year-on-year. The near-flat monthly reading suggests exports have found a temporary floor after an extended period of decline, but the scale of the annual drop confirms that South Africa's ferrochrome trade remains firmly on the back foot, in stark contrast to the chrome ore side of the business, which posted export volumes nearly 39% higher than a year earlier over the same month. Figure 1: South Africa high-carbon ferrochrome export volume and destination breakdown, June 2026 A Decline Rooted in the Smelters, Not the Market The subdued year-on-year performance is best explained by looking at what has been happening inside South Africa's ferrochrome furnaces rather than at demand abroad. Merafe Resources' H1 2026 production report, released in late July, showed the scale of the domestic problem directly: attributable ferrochrome production from the Glencore Merafe Chrome Venture collapsed 75% to just 28,000 tonnes, driven by extended suspensions at the Wonderkop and Boshoek smelters and a partial suspension at Lion. With a significant share of the country's ferrochrome-producing capacity effectively offline for much of the period being compared against, a steep year-on-year export decline is a direct, mechanical consequence of reduced output — not evidence that international buyers have gone elsewhere. Read this way, June's export weakness is a supply-side story, not a demand-side one. A Destination Mix That Looks Nothing Like Chrome Ore's China remained South Africa's largest ferrochrome destination in June, but at 31.56% of shipments, its share was far lower than the 67.61% it commanded in the equivalent chrome ore export data for the same month. That gap is telling: China's ferrochrome smelters are built to process imported raw chrome ore into alloy domestically, which is precisely why the country absorbs such an outsized share of South African ore but a comparatively smaller share of already-finished ferrochrome. South Korea's position as the second-largest destination, at 16.63%, fits the same logic from the opposite direction — Korea has limited domestic chrome ore resources and no comparable smelting base, so its stainless steel producers rely on imported semi-finished ferrochrome rather than ore. Together, the two destinations underscore how the ferrochrome trade is shaped by which countries can smelt their own ore and which cannot, a very different dynamic from the ore trade's concentration around Chinese furnace demand alone. A Possible Turning Point Ahead The timing of June's data is worth noting. Around the same period, Eskom and South Africa's ferrochrome producers reached a negotiated electricity tariff agreement, and Merafe subsequently announced the restart of the Wonderkop and Boshoek smelters at the very end of June. If that restart translates into a sustained production ramp-up through the second half of 2026, it raises the prospect that the worst of the year-on-year export declines may be behind the industry, with H2 2026 figures potentially beginning to narrow the gap against 2025 comparatives. That said, restarting idled smelters is rarely instantaneous, and the extent of any recovery will depend on how quickly output ramps back toward pre-suspension levels — a trend worth tracking closely over the coming months rather than assuming resolved. A Policy Backdrop Pulling in the Opposite Direction It's worth noting that ferrochrome sits on the other side of South Africa's chrome policy debate compared with raw ore. Where chrome ore exports have drawn government intervention — export permitting through ITAC and a proposed export tax, aimed specifically at discouraging raw shipments and pushing more material toward domestic beneficiation — ferrochrome is the very outcome that policy is designed to encourage more of. Seen against that backdrop, June's weak ferrochrome export figures represent something close to the opposite of the government's stated goal: less beneficiated product reaching export markets, even as raw ore shipments continue to climb. That contrast adds a layer of urgency to the smelter restart story, since a durable recovery in ferrochrome export volumes would be a more direct sign of the beneficiation strategy gaining traction than any adjustment to ore-export policy alone. A Note on Demand Resilience While South Korea's steady share of June shipments points to continued underlying buying interest, it's worth flagging that Chinese domestic high-carbon ferrochrome tender pricing had shown signs of softening in mid-July, with a bearish outlook for the following month's tender round. That suggests demand resilience may not be uniform across all destination markets, and is a detail worth weighing alongside the export volume data rather than assuming steady global demand across the board. Bottom Line June's ferrochrome export data tells a story of a market held down by supply constraints rather than weak demand, with a destination mix shaped by which countries smelt their own ore and which import the finished alloy. With Wonderkop and Boshoek now restarted and a new electricity tariff framework in place, the coming months will be the real test of whether South Africa's ferrochrome trade can begin closing the gap with 2025 levels, or whether the divergence between a booming chrome ore trade and a struggling ferrochrome trade becomes the defining feature of the country's chromium sector for the rest of 2026.

【Galvanized Steel Market】According to SMM, entering August, environmental-related production restrictions have continued to affect operations in some regions. In addition, most galvanized steel producers reported further weakening order books for August. As a result, domestic galvanized steel operating rates are expected to decline further this month.

Turkey's steel product exports continued to recover in the first half of the year, supported by stronger shipments to the European Union. However, a surge in imports—particularly from Russia and the Far East—along with weaker crude steel production has intensified pressure on domestic producers, prompting the Turkish Steel Producers' Association (TÇÜD) to call for tighter oversight of the country's inward processing regime.