Over 1 million tons of lighter, stronger steel products using
new technologies are expected to be applied to industrial use in
China each year in five years.
Concentrating on such value-added products will help cool the
overheated sector, said industry experts Wednesday.
Production will be around 800,000 tons this year, thanks to a
five-year national steel products research program that ended in
October. The program, called New Generation Steels, attracted about
40 organizations, including universities, steel makers and
automakers, to work together to seek the optimal path for
development of China's steel sector.
"China's steel sector is poised to produce more durable but
lighter steel products that use new technologies," said Weng
Yuqing, president of the Chinese Society for Metals.
So far, the country's 15 leading producers, including Shanghai
Baosteel, Anshan Iron and Steel and Shougang, have made around 2
million tons of such new products as ultrafine-grained steel.
Weng added that this is a sharp turn from the irrational
direction in which many investors have been throwing money. "When
they saw soaring steel prices, investors rashly jumped into the
industry to seek profits," he said. "However, lacking large initial
investments, they just tapped the low-grade steel products
market."
The newly injected money, most of which came from private
investors, overheated and weakened the steel sector by wasting
energy and resources.
"The sector is overheated in terms of the tremendous expansion
capacity of low-grade steel products," Weng noted. "However,
China's need for high-grade steel products is still rising and
can't be met by domestic makers."
China, the world's largest steel maker and consumer, produced
222 million tons of steel last year, a year-on-year increase of 22
percent.
The country imported 37.6 million tons of steel, up 52 percent
from a year before. Around 85 percent of the imports are high-grade
sheet products.
(eastday.com April 15, 2004)