In the past week, China’s spot prices of steel continued to rise sharply whereas the future prices registered a fall for three days running. Despite a drastic shortfall in global capacity utilization, China’s crude steel output rose to 46.46 million tons in May, equaling to 520 million tons annually, well in excess of the projected consumption at 460 million tons this year. Higher inventories seen in major cities in late May have directly been bound up with the increased output