The major Chinese steel city of Tangshan has launched a fresh crackdown on mills that illegally restart production or violate industry overcapacity rules, according to a notice published by the China Iron and Steel Association on Monday. Tangshan, in Hebei province, produced 88.3 million tonnes of steel last year, up 6.8% on the year and more than the entire United States, putting it on the front line of the central government’s efforts to curb overcapacity in the sector, according to Reuters. It aims to close around 8.6 million tonnes of annual production capacity this year. But the city was the subject of a central government investigation earlier this year amid concerns that firms continued to raise steel output despite mandatory cuts. New guidelines drawn up by the Tangshan planning commission promise to put grassroots government departments under greater pressure to comply with anti-pollution and overcapacity guidelines, and identified the names of officials tasked with ensuring that shuttered plants are dismantled.
China Economic Review