China's Struggle to Reform the Steel Industry

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology outlined a new steel industry standard that will ban some outdated steel products, including deformed steel bars and hot rolled silicon steel sheets, China Daily reported June 18. The new standard represents yet another effort by the state to reduce excessive capacity in the sector.

But despite Beijing's efforts to curb overcapacity in the steel industry, local government campaigns to increase the number of steel production bases and new central government moves to reinvigorate steel production will make it difficult to address underlying problems in the country's steel industry in the future.