SHANGHAI, Dec 16 - On 13 December, Baosteel Desheng took the lead in issuing the Initiative on Jointly Maintaining the Order of the 200-Series Market and Regulating Market Behaviour and committed to cut the output of 200-series products from the perspective of balancing market demand and supply, by maintaining only one blast furnace in production by March 2022 in an effort to scale back the overall supply by more than 60%.

Beigang New Material, Tsingshan Group, Huale Alloy and other stainless steel mills released similar initiatives one after another the next day following Baosteel Desheng, and vowed to reduce 200-series product output within three months. Tsingshan plans to reduce the production of 200-series by 60% by March 2022; Huale Alloy will also reduce the output of 200-series by 60% by March 2022; Beigang New Material has now started maintenance to reduce feedstock input, and will subsequently decide the intensity of production reduction depending on market conditions; Henan Xinjinhui expressed consensus with Baosteel Desheng's initiative to regulate market order, and is expected to reduce the production by 50% from January to March in 2022.

The steel mills as well as downstream distributors and users together aim to establish a fair and impartial market, boosting market confidence and maintaining reasonable market prices. Following the disclosure of the above initiatives, the prices spot 201 products generally rose in the afternoon of December 14, up 100-200 yuan/mt; 201J1 cold-rolled coil base prices stood at 10,050-10,100 yuan/mt, and 201J2 cold-rolled coil base prices recorded 9,350- 9,500 yuan/mt.