China’s steel capacity utilization falls to 75.1% in Q3

Capacity utilization in China’s ferrous metal smelting, rolling and processing industry was 75.1% in July–September 2026, down 5 percentage points from a year earlier and 2.5 points from the second quarter, the National Bureau of Statistics of China said.

For January–September, capacity utilization in the sector was 76.9%, a year-on-year decline of 3.2 percentage points.

Across China’s industrial sector, capacity utilization in the third quarter stood at 73.1%. That was 0.1 point higher than in the previous quarter but 1.5 points lower than a year earlier. The rate for the first nine months was 73.2%, down 1 percentage point year on year.