China imported a total of 18.04 million tons of steel in the first half of this year, down 2.74 percent year-on-year, according to statistics from the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA).

CISA said this is the first time for China to witness a half-year steel import decrease since 1998, and attributed it to the international steel price being higher than the domestic price andto a decrease of domestic demand for steel products.

The CISA figures show that the steel import decline was especially high in May and June, when China imported 4.57 million tons of steel, a decrease of 30 percent year on year.

However, steel export increased 29.3 percent to 4.56 million tons in the first half of 2004, according to CISA.

The economic recovery of the US and Japan has called for an increasing demand of steel and most foreign steel producers could not expand capacities in a short time, which led to the international steel price rocketing, experts say.

Source: Xinhua