Promoting Structural Adjustment of Iron and Steel Industry from Five Aspects

Affected by factors such as strong domestic market demand, China ' s crude steel production has maintained rapid growth in recent years. On June 17, the National Development and Reform Commission held a regular press conference in June. Meng Wei, a spokesman for the National Development and Reform Commission, predicted that in the coming period, especially before the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan, as China ’ s economic development continues to achieve new progress and new results, there will be some room for the demand for crude steel.

Meng Wei believes that the "14th Five-Year Plan" period is an important historical opportunity period for my country's steel industry to realize the "big to strong" transformation. The National Development and Reform Commission will focus on promoting the structural adjustment of the steel industry from five aspects. The first is to strictly enforce regulations prohibiting new production capacity. During the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" period, the nation's cumulative crude steel production capacity was reduced by more than 150 million tons, and the goal of resolving the upper limit of excess steel production capacity in the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" was exceeded two years in advance.

In 2017, the production capacity of "local steel" was banned by more than 100 million tons, which reversed the phenomenon of "local steel" and "bad money expelling good money" that had long plagued the steel industry, purified the market environment, and regulated the orderly development of the steel industry. The second is to promote the low-carbon and green development of the steel industry. In 2019, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment and other five departments issued the "Opinions on Promoting the Implementation of Ultra-Low Emissions in the Iron and Steel Industry", which put forward relevant goals and tasks and requirements. It is necessary to implement them well and accelerate the implementation of ultra-low emission transformation of iron and steel enterprises in key areas for air pollution prevention and control. Focusing on energy saving, pollutant emission reduction, and carbon emission reduction in the iron and steel industry, the innovation and demonstration application of various technologies, processes and equipment are encouraged, and the implementation path and feasible measures for carbon peaking in the iron and steel industry are carefully studied.

The third is to promote the merger and reorganization of the steel industry. Our country adheres to the principles of corporate entities, government guidance, and market-oriented operations, uses market-oriented legal methods, respects the wishes of enterprises, and allows enterprises to carry out mergers and reorganizations through independent decision-making. Government guidance is mainly reflected in creating an open, fair and just market environment, breaking market segmentation, creating favorable conditions for cross-regional reorganization, and striving for a new level of merger and reorganization of the steel industry during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period.

The fourth is to encourage the optimization of the layout of the steel industry. The "Opinions on the Filing Management of Steel Smelting Projects" issued by the National Development and Reform Commission has been formally implemented on June 1 this year. In accordance with the requirements of the "Opinions", our country actively guides the optimization of the layout of the iron and steel industry, encourages the new iron and steel smelting projects to rely on the agglomeration development of existing production bases, and strictly requires the construction scale of new iron and steel smelting projects that are indeed necessary to be selected and constructed.

The fifth is to improve the development quality level of the steel industry. We encourage iron and steel enterprises to accelerate the implementation of green and intelligent transformation, and improve the quality and level of development of the iron and steel industry. We promote the development of EAF process, improve the overall energy saving and environmental protection level of the industry, encourage the construction and expansion of domestic iron ore projects, enhance effective supply capacity, guide iron and steel enterprises to further strengthen the upstream and downstream industrial chain cooperation, and create a good market environment.