A monthly record of 40.16 million tons of steel was produced in March in China, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday.

The output was figure was 20.4 percent higher than a year earlier and 11.13 percent higher than in February.

March saw a record 38.07 million tons of pig iron produced nationwide, up 17.4 percent year-on-year and a new high of 46.95 million tons of rolled steel, up 25.7 percent year-on-year.

Industry observers attributed the rapidly growing steel production to robust domestic demand and strong incentives for enterprises to sell abroad before the Chinese government slashes tax rebates.

According to customs statistics, China exported 5.38 million tons of rolled steel in March, up 22.8 percent from February.

Industry observers forecast that China's rolled steel production would exceed 500 million tons for the whole of this year.