Beijing orders 1,400 firms to cut capacity

Beijing has instructured more than 1,400 companies operating in 19 industries to slash excess production capacity this year, Bloomberg reported. Steelmaking, ferroalloys, electrolytic aluminum, copper smelting, cement production and papermaking are among the areas affected, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said in a statement Thursday. Excess capacity must be idled by September and eliminated by the end of 2013, it said. “This detailed list shows the government is serious in its efforts to restructure the economy and is prepared to tolerate the necessary pain,” Zhang Zhiwei, chief China economist at Nomura in Hong Kong, wrote in a note.