5 steelmakers among first 10 manufacturers in China

SteelOrbis Shanghai China's National Bureau of Statistics has recently listed the top 500 companies in the manufacturing industry of the country, according to their annual incomes. In the list, where Baoshan Iron & Steel Group (Baosteel) ranks the first; the electronics and steel group Shougang Corporation is the seventh, Anshan Iron & Steel Group is the eighth, Tangshan Iron & Steel Group is the ninth, and Wuhan Iron & Steel Group is the tenth. In 2006, several steel companies sped up their steps for merging and restructuring. The consolidation effort between Jinan Steel and Laiwu Steel is the most remarkable one among them. In spite of Jinan Steel's intention to merge under Baosteel, Shandong Government is inclined to establish a Shandong Province based steel mill by merging Jinan Steel and Laiwu Steel. The new mill will have over 20 million metric tons of production capacity, only second to Baosteel. China's crude steel production is estimated to exceed 420 million metric tons this year. Some analysts think that, the growth in crude steel production will slow down next year. Mergers and acquisitions will be the hot topics in China's steel society in the near future and the scattered industry will begin to concentrate gradually.