As the world's largest producer and consumer of stainless steel, China's stainless steel industry has been increasing output in recent years.According to statistics, China's stainless steel production has increased from 14.09 million tons in 2011 to 21.69 million tons in 2014, with an average annual growth rate of 15.5%.Despite a 0.6 per cent year-on-year decline in 2015, stainless steel production is still as high as 21.56 million tonnes.

With the rapid growth of production, the size of stainless steel export expands rapidly.In 2011, the net export volume of stainless steel in China was 1.21 million tons.Net exports fell by 11.1% in 2015.

According to the production scale and export scale, China's self-supply rate of stainless steel is always high.In 2015, the apparent consumption of stainless steel in China was 16.29 million tons, and the self-supply rate of steel reached 96%.

China's stainless steel industry has not only achieved the above achievements, but also significantly improved the level of technological and product innovation, and significantly enhanced the control ability of nickel mineral resources.In addition, China's private stainless steel enterprises have seized the opportunity of development, the momentum is very strong, the production ratio has reached about 65 percent, the influence further improved.

However, during the 12th five-year plan period, the stainless steel industry also revealed many problems.First, there is a serious excess capacity, and the annual capacity utilization rate is only 65.3% in 2015.Second, export trade friction pressure is increased, to China's stainless steel exports form a new impact;Thirdly, some high-end products cannot meet the domestic requirements and still depend on imports.Its 4, 200 series stainless steel shocks domestic market seriously.

Although there are many problems, during the 13th five-year plan period, there are new market opportunities in the stainless steel industry, such as infrastructure construction, high-end equipment manufacturing and emerging industries.

According to the current economic trend, the stainless steel industry is expected to maintain steady growth during the 13th five-year plan period.By 2020, China's apparent consumption of stainless steel will reach 18 million tons, with an average annual growth rate of 2% between 2015 and 2020.Among them, the consumption of stainless steel in daily products industry is the largest, which will reach 5.5 million tons in 2020.Second is the machinery industry, with consumption of 5 million tons.Construction consumption is also not low, at 3.6m tonnes, ahead of home appliances, cars and others.

In addition, with the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry, the demand for stainless steel will change, and the application of 200 series of stainless steel will be limited, while the consumption ratio of 400 series of stainless steel will rise. The development of stainless steel varieties will focus on resource-saving type and special demand of stainless steel.