Steel Consumption Statistics

BHP's comments that iron ore demand growth from China will slow helped send the market lower today.  In that context, below is China's steel consumption relative to the rest of the world as of 2010.

It may be somewhat surprising to notice that China is far from an emerging market as far as steel is concerned.  China is the largest steel producer and consumer in the world on an absolute basis.  What's a little more surprising though is that on a per capita basis China consumes much more steel than the US does.  Can China grow per capita steel demand even more?