price firming on the sound of pennies dropping, page-5

Micky,
How many times have you been to China? I have been going about 4 times per year since the late1990s. You seem to suffer from the same myopia that the most office-bound analysts suffer from. A few basic observations:
1. Urbanisation is still far behind that which is achieved in economically advanced economies.
2. A move from infrastructure build to internal consumption will see an increase in IO demand. The per capita steel consumption seen in advanced economies is based on consumption demand, not infrastructure build. Your observation about "empty cities" shows a distinct lack of understanding about China. Dig deeper and you will see that these cities do exist, but predominantly in far western China in a vain attempt by the central government to colonise slow growing outlaying provinces. Most people in the west have no idea what internal consumption means. The majority of Chinese do not have the basic white goods that you take for granted, let alone live in a home with more than two rooms or have any form of personal transport.
3. A lot of the infrastructure built in the 1960s to ?2000s already needs to be replaced and expanded. While scrap will feed into some of this demand, it will not meet growth.
4. China's population growth has averaged 0.64% pa over the past 13 years. This year's birth rate is over 9 million which, with deaths, emigration etc, results in a gross pop increase of over 3 million per year. (Country meters.info/en/china). Work out steel demand growth from this source alone.
5. China's domestic iron production continues to become uncompetitive, due both to internal inflation and the continuous slow appreciation of the RMB. Up to 600 million tonnes per year is up for grabs. This is, by the way, why iron ore pricing is likely to stay above $110/t.
6. I'm spite of journalists comments to the contrary, China's IO imports have been monotonically increasing with short term volatility, not long term growth, grabbing the headlines.

Micky, it's easy to say, quite rudely, that somebody doesn't know what they are talking about. Unlike some, I do my own research, not blindly follow a party line interpreted by some journalist. The term "IMHO" does not cover all sins. It simply underlines how poorly some people think their thought process through. In the end, opinion counts for nought in the face of fact. I write this not to debate with you, but to give the thinking readers in this forum something to consider.