China’s economic activity has started to recover from the late-May COVID-19 resurgence, while the government has also been stepping up fiscal and monetary stimuli to support the recovery. However, recovery this year is likely to face a bumpy ride and remain relatively weak compared to the waves in 2020 and 2021, with the spread of the omicron variant proving more difficult to contain. The slowdown in property sector will only further compound China’s economic challenges. Expectations for any steel demand growth for the remainder of 2022 may need to be tempered. The omicron resurgence lasts longer China took less than two months to contain the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 and the delta variant resurgence in 2021. But due to the highly contagious nature of the omicron variant, it took China nearly three months – from early March to early June – to control the coronavirus outbreak in 2022. And […]