China’s subsidies in the industrial sector of steel production “distort” the global market and brake investments for carbon steel exemption, the OECD estimates in a report released today.

The global steel market “is distorted by non -market forces as producers who do not receive subsidies cannot face the competition on an equal basis,” the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said in its report.

The steel subsidies in China (in percentage of business receipts) are “five times superior to the average of these other economies”, according to the report, while China’s steel exports “have more than doubled by 2020”.

These reached the 118 million tonne record level (MT) in 2024, while Chinese steel imports decreased by almost 80%to 8.7 Mt.

These changes to China, the world’s first steel producer, are “a big challenge” for other countries, because their own exports have “decreased” while their imports are “increasing vertically”, the OECD observes in its report entitled “Prospects for OECD 2025”.

By 2020, steel imports increased by almost 13% in the European Union and the United Kingdom, by 18% in Japan and Korea, by 40% in North America, 52% in Turkey, by 60% in South America and up to 77% in Oceania.