Four steel production bases should be created in China, according to Luo Bingsheng, deputy chief of the China Iron and Steel Association, Securities Times reported today.

These production bases should be located in Northeast China with Anshan Iron and Steel Group and Benxi Iron and Steel Group at the core, North China with Shougang Group and Tanggang Group at the core, East China with Baosteel Group and Magang Steel Group at the core, Southwest China with Wuhan Iron and Steel and Panzhihua Iron and Steel Group at the core.

Luo said that steel enterprises' size is of utmost importance if they want to improve competitiveness by optimizing productivity layout and labor division.

The industrial concentration of China's steel sector is very low. Currently, China has more than 760 steel producers with a total production of 400 million tons in 2006, ranking first all over the world. But only 21 producers have an annual output of more than five million tons.

Arcelor Mittal, the world's largest steel company, produced more than 120 million tons in 2006, more than five times that of China's biggest producer.

(China Daily July 26 2007)