China says it has done more than its share to cut steel production as global forum is scrapped

An international forum aimed at slashing excess steel production has been scrapped, after China said it had done enough to reduce global capacity.

The last meeting, in Tokyo, of the Global Forum on Steel Excess Capacity failed to produce any major agreements from the participating countries, with China calling for the organisation to be dissolved.

China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on Saturday evening that China had made “the greatest and most outstanding” contribution to global efforts to reduce excessive steel capacity as it was the only country that had imposed a mandatory target upon itself.

“China has slashed total steel production capacity by more than 150 million tonnes since 2016, or 114 per cent of the global steel capacity cut … and China has redeployed 280,000 steel workers, which is more than the combined deployed number of steel workers in the US, the EU and Japan,” according to the ministry.

The Chinese ministry said the global excess steel capacity issue was caused by a demand slump following the financial crisis of 2008 and what was required was a combined effort by all relevant countries. The burden should not be just on China, it said.

The forum was a non-binding initiative launched by the G20 and other industrialised countries to curb the world’s steel output. China, which produces half of the world’s steel, was the obvious target. Many members, including Washington and Brussels, have complained that China’s steel output has continued to rise, despite Beijing’s promises to slash capacity.