If one were just looking at the increase in steel production for 2021, the United States, with an 18% increase, out-ranked China, which actually showed a slight decrease (of 3%) last year. According to figures compiled by the World Steel Association (WSA), India, at 17%, showed the second largest increase in annual production, followed by Japan and Brazil, with virtually identical 14.9% and 14.7%, respectively, (a handful of much smaller producers actually showed larger percentile increases).
However, accounting for the fact that China is the absolute global leader in total steel production, with their 1,032 metric tons output being virtually 10 times its nearest competitor (India, at 118 mt), then even China’s gain at the end of 2021 could be considered a gain for the world. The steady decline in China’s monthly output in 2021 is almost certainly (although not acknowledged by the WSA) accountable by a collapse in exports, as humanity, to recoup from the pandemic collapse, struggled against neo-Malthusian “Just Transition” policies which called for reduced steel consumption.
In total, the steel output for the world last year — produced by 64 steelmaking countries around the globe — was 1,911.9 mt, an almost negligible 3.6% increase from the pandemic low of 2020. And that, according to the WSA data, was accounted for by a brief rise in February and March, after which China, the “others,” and the world’s steelmaking went down all year, until China reversed the decline in December with a strong monthly rise. Significantly, this was after China’s regulators got coal prices down from the August- September spike, coal production up, and power production up from the late summer rolling blackouts in some industries.
Africa, the continent with the fastest-growing population on the planet, produced a mere 16 mt last year, less than 1% of the world’s total.