China's crude steel output likely to hit a new record high this year
2010-07-14 09:07:59 【Print】
BEIJING (Asian Metal) 14 Jul 10 – Minister of Industry and Information Technology forecasts that China's crude steel output this year is expected to reach 620 million to 630 million tons due to the release of excessive iron and steel production.
The total output of crude steel in the first five months of this year is 269 million tons, up by 23.8% compared with that of the same period of last year. Despite the decline in average daily yield from June, it is expected that the output in the whole year will likely hit a new record high on the basis of 568 million tons last year, with an increase of 10%.
The release of excessive production capacity is more than the demand, which increases the pressure on the domestic market. After the government adopted the national regulatory policies of the real estate market, the steel consumption has been declining. Steel prices have been downward consecutively for nine weeks since late April. Currently, facing high prices of raw materials and low steel prices, some steel mills have a loss.
More alarming is that, steel fixed-asset investment is still growing in spite of the excess capacity. From January to May this year, steel fixed assets investment is up to 135.6 billion yuan, up by 13.8% compared with that of the same period of last year. It is reported that there are still a number of expansion projects in the intense construction, which will result in China's steel production capacity to continue to expand and increase the difficulty of energy conservation and structural adjustment.
Therefore, Minister of Industry and Information Technology will make great efforts to restrain the excessive growth of steel production capacity through strictly legal and administrative measures to check the new capacity.
