¡¡BEIJING, April 27 (Xinhua) -- China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) predict that steel prices will keep rising steadily in the second quarter of this year.

    A report conducted by the Price Monitoring Center of NDRC, the country's industrial watchdog, said steel prices in the domestic market witnessed a slight drop before a steady increase in the first quarter of this year.

    The report said the price of panel steel rose to 5,895 yuan per ton at the end of March, up 8 percent on the early part of this year.

    The price of bars and building materials rose 1.79 percent and 1.13 percent respectively to 3,299 yuan per ton and 3,129 yuan per ton at the end of March.

    The NDRC report forecast that steel prices will continue to rise during the April-June period as production costs keep growing due to the higher oil prices and railway transport costs in March and April.

    Meanwhile, the country's increased steel exports and decreased imports also helped push up domestic steel prices in the first three months.

    Statistics showed that China exported 2.81 million tons of steel in March, a rise of 27 percent from the previous year and 950,000 tons more than that in February this year.

    The warming up of the international steel market is also helping to stabilize China's steel prices, according to the report.

    In the first quarter of this year, steel prices in the international market also rebounded. They rose 6.88 percent in March compared with earlier this year. The report predicted that international steel prices will continue climbing in the second quarter.

    The report, however, also warned of the risk that steel prices may fall again if the current oversupply situation can not be changed fundamentally and the nation's steel output continues to surge sharply.

    In February, China's average daily output of pig iron, steel and rolled steel hit records of 1.02 million tons, 1.05 million tons and 1.14 million tons respectively.

    The report also said China faces increasing risks of anti-dumping charges imposed by other nations with the country's soaring exports of steel products.

    The report urged the sector to phase out production lines with outdated technologies and strengthen coordination and management of the import and export of steel products to avoid anti-dumping charges caused by competition among Chinese steel producers and trading firms.

    The departments concerned should keep a close eye on the country's steel output and prices in order to control the fast growth of output capacity and avoid sharp price fluctuations, the report noted. Enditem