Global steel production in April was 35,7% higher than a year ago, but 0,4% lower than March, at 121,6-million tons, the Worldsteel Association reported this week.

It said in a statement on Thursday that despite the month-on-month decline in output, April's global crude steel capacity use ratio rose for the fourth month in a row.

Steel production in South Africa, Africa's biggest steel producer, showed an increase of 15,3% for April 2010, to 6,9-million tons compared with April 2009's 5,98-million tons, while the African steel market also showed a slight increase of 8,9% in production from 13,75-million tons in the comparative period.

Meanwhile, the world's biggest steel producer, China, showed a 27% increase in its April 2010 steel production from to 55,4-million tons, the highest monthly amount of steel that the country has ever produced.

Among other Asian steelmakers, Japan produced nine-million tons of crude steel in April, 3,8% less than the previous month, but 57% higher than the same month last year.

Meanwhile, output from South Korea was up by 0,7% from March to 4,8-million, which was also 23% higher than the production for April last year.

The US produced 6,8-million tons of crude steel in April, 4,2% lower than last month, but 79% higher than in April 2009.

Further, Brazilian crude steel production fell 4,3% month-on-month to 2,7-million tons for April 2010, however, production was still 57% higher than the comparable period last year.

In Europe, Germany's crude steel production was 3,9-million tons, which was 3,4% less than in March, but more than double the level produced a year earlier.

Italy also showed a spike in production up 58% to 2,4-million tons and Spain was up 36% from the previous year to 1,6-million tons.

Crude steel production in all European countries totalled 15,4-million tons, 64% up year-on-year, but 0,8% lower than March.