China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has announced that it intends not to use equipment size in the future as the one of the main criteria in the elimination of steel production capacity.
In its statement on the issue, the ministry said, "To take the equipment sizes as one of the main criteria was convenient for each [provincial] government; however, it has also caused some issues as many producers have increased furnace sizes, resulting in an unexpected increase in steel capacities."
As indicated by the statistics of the MIIT, during the country's 11th five-year plan period (2006-2010)
China eliminated 194.96 million mt of outdated steel capacities, with most of the backward equipment in question being dismantled.
The MIIT revealed that energy/resource consumption and environment protection indices will be listed as the main criteria for future steel capacity elimination programs.