Argentina's Steel Production: Stalling

After nose-diving due to last year's lockdown, steel production recovered quickly. Production surpassed pre-pandemic levels by November and even continued increasing, in line with overall activity dynamics. However, 2021 has shown a different track record. Seasonally adjusted data shows that steel production has been decreasing since January (-4.3% MoM in April), explained mostly by lower production of crude steel and hot-rolled steel.

Recent dynamics seem in line with other sectoral data, and even with broad economic activity data, which point to recovery losing momentum.