According to Norilsk Nickel, global metal consumption has stagnated amid a slow demand recovery in the automotive sector.
TASS quotes Anton Berlin, vice president and head of the sales division of the company, as saying that metal consumption in Europe is experiencing a “rather serious decline,” while demand growth in China has slowed down, which was offset to some extent by the recovery in the United States.
“If we talk about the global economy as a whole, we see a rather serious decline in Europe, which used to be our main sales market. We have growth in China, but it is already in single digits. This is not like it was 20 years ago, when China was growing at 20% annually. There is some recovery in the United States,” he noted.
“On a global scale, I would say that metal consumption is stagnating. It is moving very slowly,” Berlin added.
Meanwhile, the automotive sector has failed to fully recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and has not reached levels seen in 2019. At the same time, according to Berlin, a significant part of the growth in post-pandemic auto production came from electric vehicles.
Nornickel expects global car production to be 91-92 million units this year, which is less than the company's forecast of 120 million units in 2025.
"For scale: 2019 ended with 97 million regular-production cars. That was our mark," Berlin noted.
Theodor Lisovoy, Managing Editor, Rough&Polished
