SteelOrbis Shanghai
According to the latest official figures, China's total urban fixed assets investments for the January-August 2007 period increased 26.7 percent year on year to RMB 6.6659 trillion ($886.4 billion). Thus, the growth is 0.1 of a percentage point higher than that of the January-July period, still maintaining its stable trend. Meanwhile, fixed assets investments in real estate development totaled RMB 1.4277 trillion ($189.9 billion), up 29.0 percent year on year.
In terms of the various industry sectors, the January-August fixed assets investments in the coal mining and washing industry was RMB 90.8 billion ($12.1 billion), up 22 percent year on year; the figure for oil and gas exploitation was RMB 108.1 billion ($14.4 billion), up 10.5 percent; the non-metal mineral products industry totaled RMB 162.1 billion ($21.6 billion), up 49.6 percent; the ferrous metal smelting industry registered RMB 149.9 billion ($19.9 billion), up 12.9 percent; the non-ferrous metal mining smelting and dressing industries saw total fixed assets investment of RMB 74.1 billion ($9.9 billion), up 29.2 percent; total fixed assets investment in the electricity and energy production and supply industry was RMB 460.7 billion ($61.3 billion), with an increase of 11.5 percent; finally, investment in railway transportation reached RMB 119.3 billion ($15.9 billion), up 3.4 percent.
The fixed assets investment in the steel industry remained at a relatively low level, but the growth rate seems to have accelerated a little. The increase rate in the January-August period was 3.7 percentage points higher than in January-July, indicating a relatively large amount of fixed assets investment in the steel industry in August. This means that China's steel capacity is still growing rapidly.