BEIJING/HONG KONG, May 27 -- China, the world's top producer of steel and some base metals, will close down more outdated metals production capacity this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said on Thursday.
China has said it will close a total 300,000 tonnes of copper smelting capacity, 600,000 tonnes of lead and zinc capacity, 800,000 tonnes of aluminium capacity and millions of steel capacity under a three-year plan which started last year to reduce overcapacity and cut down pollution.
China has pledged to cut the amount of carbon dioxide produced from each unit of economic growth by 40-45 percent by 2020, compared with the 2005 level.
This year, Beijing's target is to shut down outdated capacity of 339,000 tonnes of aluminium, 117,000 tonnes of copper smelting, 113,000 tonnes of zinc and 243,000 tonnes of lead, according to the report posted on the central government web site (www.gov.cn) and the ministry web site (www.miit.gov.cn), which said the closed capacity details were given in a two-day meeting starting on Thursday.
Some 8.25 million tonnes of outdated steel capacity, 30 million tonnes of iron production capacity, 21.27 million tonnes of coke capacity and 1.44 million tonnes of ferroalloy capacity would also be closed this year, it said.
Under the three-year plan, Beijing last year aimed to close outdated capacity of 21.13 million tonnes of iron, 16.91 million tonnes of steel, 18.09 million tonnes of coke, 1.62 million tonnes of ferroalloy and 313,500 tonnes of aluminium, a document posted on the ministry web site showed.
