Opportunities for construction steel exports under the Asian infrastructure boom in 2025

Against the backdrop of profound adjustments in the global economic landscape, the Asian infrastructure boom is becoming the core engine driving the export of construction steel. In 2025, infrastructure investment in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and South Asia continued to heat up, opening up structural growth space for Chinese steel companies, but it was also accompanied by challenges such as escalating trade barriers and capacity mismatch. This article combines the latest industry data and typical cases to analyze the demand characteristics, competition landscape and response strategies for construction steel in the Asian infrastructure market.
I. Steel demand map under the Asian infrastructure boom
1. Southeast Asia: infrastructure and industrialization dual-wheel drive
Southeast Asia is still the core market for construction steel exports. In 2024, China's steel exports to Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and other countries will exceed 33 million tons, accounting for 44% of Asia's total exports. Among them, Vietnam, relying on the second phase of the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway and the Ho Chi Minh City subway, has driven China to export more than 12.6 million tons of rebar, steel and other building materials to it. Thailand's "Eastern Economic Corridor 2.0" plan has pushed Zoomlion's concrete machinery market share to over 29%. The price of locally assembled mixer trucks is 15% lower than that of imported complete machines, indirectly driving the demand for steel.
2. Middle East: Energy transformation and urbanization give rise to high-end demand
Infrastructure investment in the Middle East focuses on new energy and urbanization. Saudi Arabia's "NEOM New City" project has driven China to export special steels such as weathering steel and high-strength steel to it. The compressor units provided by Shaanxi Turbo Power for the Baltic Chemical Complex are 9% more efficient than similar products of Siemens, winning an order of 1.8 billion yuan. The construction of the Dubai Expo venues in the United Arab Emirates has given rise to demand for decorative steels such as galvanized sheets and color-coated sheets.
3. South Asia: The demographic dividend and policy dividend are superimposed
India's "National Infrastructure Pipeline Plan" and Bangladesh's Padma Bridge Railway Link Project have driven China to export engineering steels such as H-beams and steel sheet piles to it. In 2024, China's steel exports to India increased by 27% year-on-year, but due to the local anti-dumping investigation, the export growth rate slowed down by 12 percentage points compared with 2023.
II. Competitive advantages and challenges of China's steel exports
1. Cost advantage and supply chain resilience
The core competitiveness of China's steel exports lies in its cost advantage. In 2025, the price of iron ore fell below US$80/ton, and coke experienced eight rounds of price increases and reductions, making China's steel production cost 15%-20% lower than that of Europe and the United States. In addition, Chinese steel companies shortened the delivery cycle through the "overseas warehouse + direct supply" model. For example, the steel base established by Hesteel Group in Indonesia achieved localized production of hot-rolled coils, which reduced the transportation cost of China's export products by 30%.
2. Trade barrier escalation and market differentiation
Since 2024, China's steel exports have encountered 113 anti-dumping investigations, of which 69 are still under investigation. Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and other countries have imposed a 5%-15% tariff on Chinese hot-rolled coils, causing China's steel market share in Southeast Asia to drop from 48% in 2023 to 41% in 2025. At the same time, countries such as India and South Korea have circumvented tariffs through localized production. For example, South Korea's Posco has invested in building a cold rolling mill in India to seize the local automotive plate market.
3. Pressure for high-end and green transformation
The Asian market has increasingly stringent requirements for steel performance. Indonesia's power transformation plan requires that the salt spray corrosion resistance of steel used in wind power hoisting equipment meet the ISO 9227 standard. The salt spray corrosion-resistant model developed by Sany Heavy Industry has a 37% lower maintenance cost than Hitachi Construction Machinery products. In addition, the Middle East market has seen a surge in demand for low-carbon steel. For example, the UAE requires that the carbon footprint of construction steel be less than 0.8 tons of CO₂/ton of steel, forcing Chinese steel companies to accelerate the transformation of electric furnace steelmaking technology.
III. Enterprise breakthrough strategies and industry trends
1. Regional deep cultivation and localized operations
Leading companies have deepened their presence in the Asian market through the "capacity forward + technology output" model. For example, Baosteel Co., Ltd. established an automotive plate processing center in Rayong Province, Thailand, providing JIT delivery services for local Toyota and Honda factories; Xugong Group established a shield machine remanufacturing base in Indonesia to reduce equipment maintenance costs by 40%.
2. Product upgrade and differentiated competition
In response to the demand for high-strength steel and weathering steel in the Asian market, Chinese steel companies have increased their R&D investment. For example, the 1000MPa high-strength steel developed by Anshan Iron and Steel Group is used in the construction of bridges of the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway in Indonesia, which is 25% lighter than traditional Q345 steel; the zinc-aluminum-magnesium coated steel plate developed by Shougang Jingtang has a market share of 35% in Vietnam's photovoltaic bracket market.
3. Digitalization and greening collaboration
Intelligent services have become a new growth point. For example, the equipment health management system developed by China Railway Construction Heavy Industry has reduced the downtime of overseas customers by 63% through predictive maintenance, and its annual subscription service revenue exceeds 800 million yuan; Hesteel Group uses blockchain technology to trace the carbon footprint of steel, and its low-carbon hot-rolled coils have a premium of 10% in the UAE market.
IV. Future Outlook and Risk Warning
In 2025, the Asian infrastructure boom will push China's steel exports to maintain above 100 million tons, but we need to be vigilant about three major risks:
1. Normalization of trade frictions: The United States's stricter supervision of Southeast Asian re-export trade may trigger a chain reaction;
2. Structural overcapacity: The utilization rate of low-end building materials is less than 60%, while high-end special steel still relies on imports;
3. Exchange rate fluctuation risk: The depreciation of currencies such as the Egyptian pound and the Vietnamese dong has led to an increase in corporate accounts receivable losses.
In this context, Chinese steel companies need to build a global supply chain system with "technology + service" as the core in order to achieve sustainable development in the Asian infrastructure wave.