* Steel production seen at record of 923 mln T this year * Expected to slip back to 900 mln T in 2019 * China is world's top steel producer (Adds comment, table) BEIJING, Dec 10 (Reuters) - China's 2018 crude steel output is expected to set an annual record of 923 million tonnes before slipping back to 900 million tonnes next year, a government consultancy said on Monday. Output in the world's top steel producer jumped this year from 831.73 million tonnes in 2017, with major mills boosting production to fill a gap after Beijing shut down low-grade steel capacity that had not previously been included in official data, said Li Xinchuang, president at the China Metallurgical Industry Planning and Research Institute. "Steel output is moved by the general economic situation and demand in both domestic and global markets," Li said at a briefing, adding that China's ongoing anti-pollution campaign and uncertainty stemming from Sino-U.S. trade friction would also affect the steel market. The consultancy also predicted that steel consumption in China would fall to 800 million tonnes in 2019 from 820 million tonnes this year, dragged down by waning demand in the property, automobile and energy sectors. China is expected to consume 1.206 billion tonnes of iron ore this year, up 1.6 percent from a year earlier, the institute said in a report. Use of the key steelmaking ingredient will drop to around 1.147 billion tonnes next year alongside declining steel output, it said. The government research body also predicts China will export a net 55 million tonnes of steel products in 2019, down slightly from 56.2 million tonnes this year. Below is a breakdown of steel demand measured in million tonnes: Sector 2019 yr-on-yr pct change% Property 425 -1.2 Machinery 142 1.4 Automobile 55.5 -0.9 Energy 32.5 -1.5 Shipbuilding 12.5 4.1 Household Applications 12.6 0.8 Rail 5.4 5.9 Container 6.5 8.3 (Reporting by Muyu Xu and Dominique Patton Editing by Kenneth Maxwell and Joseph Radford)
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