The operation rate of China's engineering machineries, jointly created by CCTV Finance, Sany Heavy Industry and Rootcloud, declined to 64.69% in April from 65.05% in March, their data showed.
Some mill sources and traders said steel demand from infrastructure construction was relatively strong in April, but the slowdown in property steel demand was significant.
China's new home construction starts dropped 32.7% on the month and 28.3% on the year in April, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed.
China's construction steel production was already on a downtrend in April, but end-user demand fell even faster, leading to a rapid drop in steel prices.
