China Consolidates Fragmented Steel Industry

China will have one or two internationally competitive steel giants capable of 100-200 million metric tons of the material by 2015, a coauthor of the guidelines on restructuring the nation's steel industry told China Business News Tuesday.

There were over 1,000 mills with an average annual capacity of less than one million tons of crude steel across the nation in 2008. The top five were responsible for just 28.5% of the total output.

The government is working to help the largest 10 industry players manufacture 50% of the total output by 2010 and 70% by 2020.

The 70 major steelmakers booked ¥29.98 billion in net income and ¥1.6 trillion in revenues for the nine months through September 2009, down 77.65% and 24.39% year-on-year respectively.