Economic woes crimp steel demand

Global demand for steel will grow by just 2 percent this year owing to a rebalancing of the Chinese economy and a slowdown in other emerging countries, the sector's trade body said on Monday.

The growth forecast to 1.56 billion metric tons in steel use by the World Steel Association is down from the 3.1 percent rate it forecast in April and the 3.8 percent recorded in 2013.

"The positive momentum in global steel demand seen in the second half of 2013 abated in 2014 with weaker than expected performance in the emerging and developing economies," the head of the association's economics committee, Hans Juergen Kerhoff, said in a statement.