A senior official at the China Iron and Steel Industry Association (CISA) said he is confident about the effectiveness of the government's campaign to cut overcapacity in the steel sector.
Wang Liqun, vice chairman at the CISA, said at an industry expo that the central government is giving unprecedented attention to the issue of overcapacity and there will be results, financial news portal cnstock.com reported on Thursday.
China aims to cut 100 million to 150 million tons of crude steel capacity in the next five years starting from 2016, the State Council, China's cabinet, said in February.
The nation's crude steel output reached 803.8 million tons in 2015 or 50.3 percent of global production, data released by the World Steel Association in January showed.
Liu Xinwei, a steel industry analyst with Shandong Province-based consultancy Sublime China Information, told the Global Times Thursday that weight of such a statement depends on implementation, regardless of the government's pledges.
"It depends on to what extent the plan of cutting overcapacity is carried out at the local levels," Liu said.
Some progress has already been made. For example, in North China's Hebei Province, a major steel producing region, 41.06 million tons of steelmaking capacity were eliminated from 2011 to 2015, media reported on Thursday.
Companies in the province are also moving some production facilities abroad, with completed or under construction capacity hitting 1.95 million tons.
Since 2011, China has been actively eliminating obsolete capacity, and this drive has saved energy and supported environmental protection.
Regarding the complaints in some countries regarding increased imports of Chinese steel, Wang said more than 80 percent of China's steel output is intended for the domestic market and is not appropriate to lay all the blame on China for the global steel glut.
The nation's steel output is now widely believed to have peaked, with 2015 output down 2.3 percent from that of 2014.
