According to a report released by the OECD Steel Council, the global steelmaking capacity in the first half of 2017 was 2.36 billion tons, down slightly by 0.6% from 2.37 billion tons in the same period of 2016. Among them, the Middle East, South America, with the exception of the European Union and other European countries, steel production increased significantly. The steel council chairman Lisen Toptone said: "Excess capacity is alarmingly high."
The report predicts that from 2017 to 2019, the global steel production capacity will be nearly 40 million tons, of which the Middle East will add about 23 million tons.
Alistair Ramsay, head of metals market research firm in the United States, said any increase in steel production in any region could pose a clear risk to future steel pricing and profits.
According to the OECD's report, global steel demand will pick up in the future but not enough to absorb the current excess capacity. Chris Holden, a researcher at the Commodity Institute in the UK, also predicted that global demand growth will not be sufficient to provide a sound basis for new capacity.
Li Bo, a visiting researcher at the Research Center for International Chinese Studies at Aichi University in Japan, told Xinhua News Agency reporters that the global overcapacity problem is still very serious, mainly concentrated in the traditional industries of steel, non-ferrous metals and rubber based on the processing of raw materials. Overcapacity in markets and developing countries is concentrated.
Some western politicians and enterprises are keen on blaming China for overcapacity. This view is neither objective nor fair. In fact, in recent years, China has taken the initiative as the main line of supply-side structural reform and has contributed to the international community by digesting and eliminating excess capacity such as steel and coal.
China's efforts to reduce production capacity are unique in the world. Official figures show that China exited more than 65 million tons of steel capacity last year and reduced its output by 50 million tons again this year. China Iron and Steel Association said that China has basically achieved its goal of cutting over 100 million to 150 million tons of excess capacity over the five years set in last year.
Edwin Basson, director general of the World Steel Association, said China has played a prominent role in reducing excess capacity globally. In the past two years, China has cut its production capacity to a level comparable to that of the United States.
In an interview with Xinhua News Agency reporters, Ramsay said that overcapacity in the global steel industry will continue to decline from the end of 2015 and China will have contributed to it.
China has made outstanding achievements in capacity-building thanks to the government's accurate grasp of the trend and its ability to execute. Xiong Yu, a lifelong professor at Newcastle Business School of Northumbria University in the United Kingdom, said that compared with most other countries, China has implemented more relevant measures in a more accurate and vigorous manner and has implemented the principle of "digesting one batch, transferring one batch, consolidating one batch, and eliminating a batch The right path.
Sergey Lukonen, director of the Chinese economic and political department at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said that China is compressing and eliminating backward production capacity and raising the level of production technology. China has completed this process and achieved cross-border cooperation with other countries through advanced production capacity Habitat production, will create a more efficient production of high value-added international industrial chain.
In the 10 years since the international financial crisis, the international community worked hard to push the world economy back to the recovery track gradually. At present, the world economy is getting better and the global trade and investment are getting warmer, and the confidence of all parties has been significantly enhanced. There are reasons to believe that with the continuous promotion of international capacity cooperation, all parties will pay more attention to policy coordination and the production capacity in various countries and regions will be more balanced. The supply and demand of global industries will be more reasonable.
