Before September, steel industry profits increased by 80% over the past year.

Editor's Note: With the vigorous promotion of structural reform on the supply side by the state, the operation quality of the iron and steel industry has improved significantly this year, and the industry's profitability has returned to the average level of industry. The target of 1.5 million tons of steel production capacity will be completed two years ahead of schedule. However, China still has a long way to go before it can truly become a powerful steel country. We still need to establish a long-term mechanism to prevent overcapacity and avoid falling into the circle of repetition.

From 9 to 10 November, "2018 (7th) China High-end Forum on Iron and Steel Technology and Economy" co-sponsored by Institute of Metallurgical Industry Planning and Research and China Metal Society was held in Beijing. At the meeting, Vice President Qu Xiuli of China Iron and Steel Industry Association said that the operation quality of the iron and steel industry has improved significantly this year, and the profitability of the industry has returned to the average level of industry.

Profits in September increased by 80% over the same period last year.

According to reports, China's steel production has maintained growth since the beginning of this year, and the linkage between production and demand is better. From the inventory point of view, social inventory is relatively low, and enterprise inventory is basically at a normal level. From the market perspective, the operation is relatively stable, steel prices fluctuate slightly. In the first 10 months, the average steel price index was 116.35 points, up 10.56% year-on-year, and decreased by 0.07% at the end of October compared with the beginning of the year.

"Iron and steel enterprises to improve efficiency and leverage to achieve results." Qu Xiuli said that in the first nine months, the total profit of the member enterprises of China Steel Association was 230 billion yuan, an increase of 86.01% over the same period last year; the profit margin of sales was 7.5%, which was 2.88 percentage points higher than the same period last year, and the profit level of the iron and steel industry returned to the average level of the industrial industry. At the same time, the asset liability ratio of the steel industry has declined and debt paying ability has improved significantly.

Looking ahead to the trend of the industry, Qu Xiuli believes that steel prices will continue to fluctuate slightly and will not fluctuate sharply; the fourth quarter of the steel enterprise benefit is expected to decline annually, but this year it will still maintain a growth trend.

The smooth and stable operation of the steel industry has obviously benefited from the country's efforts to push forward the structural reform of the supply side. The target of 150 million tons of iron and steel to remove the capacity ceiling will be completed in 2018, two years ahead of the original plan; completely banning "floor steel", eliminating the market cancer, and giving full play to the superior production capacity of iron and steel. Data show that from January to September, the utilization rate of steel industry capacity was 78.1%, higher than the national average level of industry.

Long term mechanism still needs to be explored

Experts at the meeting generally believed that, with the remarkable effect of structural reform on the supply side, great achievements have been made in the development of iron and steel industry, and the pace of transformation and upgrading of enterprises has been accelerated. However, there is still a gap between China and the real building of a strong steel country. There are still some problems that can not be ignored in the industry. Some of them have appeared. Enterprises in the industry should remain calm and calm.

"The iron and steel industry must establish a long-term mechanism to prevent overcapacity." Li Xinchuang, Director of Metallurgical Technology and Economy Branch of China Metal Society and Dean of Planning Research Institute of Metallurgical Industry, pointed out that in the development of iron and steel industry, there have been many prosperous situations, but for various reasons, they often have a short period of prosperity and fall into the circle of recurrence. Previous recoveries were mostly driven by cyclical demand for fixed investment and consumption growth, which led to the recovery of the iron and steel industry. This was mainly due to the structural upgrading of the supply side driven by capacity reduction and environmental protection. If we are complacent and do not take advantage of the current good momentum to speed up the structural adjustment of the iron and steel industry and consolidate the achievements made in time, the iron and steel industry is likely to fall into a dilemma again as before. Not only will the previous achievements in capacity removal be discarded, but the difficulty of future readjustment will also be greater.

In accordance with the development trend and policy requirements, China's iron and steel industry must conscientiously promote layout optimization, merger and reorganization, green development, quality improvement, variety upgrading, service upgrading and other aspects of work.

Leading high quality development with standardization

Li Xinchuang said that in the development of high-quality steel products, we should focus on the goal of "Made in China, built in China, served in China, and markedly enhanced international competitiveness of Chinese brands", and constantly improve the quality to meet the needs of upgrading and upgrading the downstream steel industry. Through scientific and technological innovation, iron and steel enterprises should grasp the future development direction of technology, technology and products of iron and steel industry, and adopt advanced technology and equipment to effectively improve production efficiency and product quality.

"We must standardize the development of high quality industries." Li Xinchuang emphasized that standards are one of the hard constraints of developing quality, and the standard system of iron and steel industry should be perfected. On the one hand, national standards and industry standards should play a "bottom line" role; on the other hand, iron and steel enterprises should be encouraged to formulate group standards and enterprise standards to meet downstream customer needs, improve service level and establish enterprise brand.

Li Xinchuang pointed out that standards are the benchmark and driving force for technological innovation and development. We should give full play to the leading role of standard "tree benchmark" and lead the structural adjustment, transformation and upgrading of iron and steel industry through standard innovation. At the same time, the threshold effect of "standardization plus" should be brought into play, and the technology supporting role should be displayed in the process of promoting "capacity removal, inventory removal, leverage removal, cost reduction and shortcomings compensation board", so as to eliminate backward production capacity, force enterprises to upgrade and serve "three to one to reduce one to make up". (economic daily and China economic net reporter Zhou Lei)