Chinese steel production capacity in 2018 expected to be 1 billion mt

On March 6, Ning Jizhe, deputy director of China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) and also director of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), stated at the 12th National People's Congress in Beijing that, after the elimination of 50 million mt of steel production capacity this year, China’s steel production capacity in 2018 is expected to be one billion mt. He went on to say that Chinese annual domestic steel consumption had already reached 0.8 billion mt two years ago, and so the imbalance situation between supply and demand in the domestic steel industry is expected to be eliminated within a year or two.