Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: China denies currency war as global steel industry cries foul

Chinese steelmakers are preparing to flood the global market with cut-price exports as they take advantage of this week’s shock devaluation of the yuan, setting off furious protests from struggling competitors in Europe and the US. It is the first warning sign of a deflationary wave of cheap products from China after the central bank, abandoned its exchange rate regime. The yuan has fallen 3.3pc against the dollar, closing at 6.3989. Steel mills in the Chinese industrial hub of Hebei have already begun to trim prices of rebar mesh-wires used for building by between roughly $5 and $10 to $295, citing the devaluation as a fresh chance to offload excess stocks of steel. Europe’s steel lobby Eurofer warned that there would be “very real competitiveness impacts” for European steel firms, already battling for their lives with wafer-thin margins. The US steel group Nucor called the devaluation the “latest attempt to support Chinese industry at the expense of producers in the rest of the world who have to earn their cost of capital to survive.” To read more click the (VIEW LINK)