The Special Steel Enterprises Association of China (SSEA) has stated that China's annual production capacity of stainless steel now stands at 15 million mt, while actual annual production is below 9 million mt.
In 2009, stainless steel output totaled 8.8 million mt in China, accounting for 39.5 percent of global production of stainless steel. In the first five months of this year, China produced 3.56 million mt of stainless steel, up 18 percent year on year, accounting for half of the global output.
Affected by the economic crisis in late 2008, stainless steel demand in the international market slackened. SSEA experts suggest that domestic stainless steel producers should be cautious given the oversupply situation and should accelerate the elimination of dated capacities and produce high quality and high value-added products to substitute imported products.