On October 19, China's National Development and Reform Commission held a joint press conference with nine government ministries on the issue of curbing overcapacity and excessive construction activity in some industries, as well as ensuring healthy industrial development.
During the press conference, NDRC official Xiong Bilin declared that, due to the financial crisis, a great change has been seen in global steel demand. Overall steel demand last year was 1.27 billion mt, he said, while this year the figure is likely to be around 1.1 billion mt.
In the current situation, the fact of overcapacity of steel production in China was indisputable. Mr. Xiong said that overcapacity and excessive construction were old problems which hampered Chinese industries. In order to ensure the healthy development of the steel industry and other domestic industries, the ministries and the NDRC would make joint efforts to tackle the problems in question by means of environmental supervision, regulation of land supply, strict control of bank loans, careful examination of new projects, encouragement of mergers and acquisitions, and the establishment of an information release system and a system of accountability.