Driven by the hot-rolled product's futures price, China's hot-rolled export quotation rose sharply. After that, hot-rolled prices in the Asian market follow the uptrend, and so does the Taiwanese price. According to steel traders, over the past week, local steel mills in Taiwan started to take a firm stance on their quotations and raised their quotations to South Korean buyers.

Meanwhile, from this week, they started to raise the quotation to European buyers as well. However, based on the fact that European customers are still on holiday these days, steel traders believe that most of the buyers are still taking a wait-and-see approach at the moment.