China saw a month-on-month drop in rolled steel exports in September, albeit foreign sales of such products were higher than the year-earlier level.

Last month China exported 6.67 million tonnes of rolled steel, a growth of 2.23 million tonnes over the same month of last year, sources with the General Administration of Customs said on Saturday.

But the exports were 1.01 million tonnes less than the August amount.  The decrease was not so big as observers expected upon global economic slowdown.

This indicated that China-made rolled steel was still competitive in price on international markets. It was possible that the decline in orders from Europe had been offset with those from emerging markets, said Zhang Ping, a steel industry analyst with the United Metals Web.

According to customs data, China exported 48.5 million tonnes of rolled steel in the first nine months of this year, down 2.1 percent from the same period of last year. But the export value went up 46.5 percent to  $49.8 billion.

In a related development, China imported 1.27 million tonnes of rolled steel in September, down 4.54 percent from August or 11.1 percent from the same month of last year.

Rolled steel imports were 12.32 million tonnes in the January-September period, down five percent from a year earlier.