BRUSSELS (Commodity Online): The International Stainless Steel Forum (ISSF) has reported that global stainless steel production has remained fairly stable at 17.2 mn metric tonnes in the first half of 2012. The figure represents only a marginal decline of 0.2% on a year-on-year basis, ISSF said.

In Asia with China excluded, stainless steel production increased by 2.2% to 4.5 million tons. There was a mixed performance of the individual Asian countries in the period of review: While Korea and India showed increased production volumes the stainless crude steel production decreased in Japan and Taiwan, China. China increased the stainless steel production in the period of review by 1.1% (after corrections made by ISSF) to 7.1 mmt.

Western Europe/Africa experienced a slightly shrinking development in stainless steel production during the first six months of 2012. Total production was 4.3 mmt (minus 0.5%) in this period. Also in this area there was a split development showing production changes from plus 11% to minus 14% after the first six months of 2012.

In The Americas region, stainless crude steel production decreased by 13.4%% to 1.0 million tons in the first half of the year. Production in the Eastern Europe region showed a drop of 9%, with now less than 0.2 mmt continuously on an almost negligible low volume level.