How did the blast furnace capacity change during the "Methods of Implementing Capacity Replacement in the Steel Industry"?

On August 20, 2024, the General Office of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) issued a notice on suspending the work of steel capacity replacement. Starting from August 23, 2024, all regions are to suspend the public announcement of new steel capacity replacement plans. Those who continue to publicize or announce steel capacity replacement plans without complying with this notice will be considered as illegally adding new steel capacity and will be reported as negative examples. The original notice from MIIT contained two main points:
Suspension of Steel Capacity Replacement
Starting from August 23, 2024, all regions will suspend the announcement and publication of new steel capacity replacement schemes. Any regions that continue to announce or publish steel capacity replacement schemes against the requirements of this notice will be considered as having added non-compliant steel capacity, and they will be reported as negative examples.
Revising the Steel Capacity Replacement Methods
Our department, in conjunction with relevant parties, will expedite the research and revision of the steel capacity replacement methods, further improve the policy measures for capacity replacement, and implement them after extensively soliciting opinions and suggestions from all relevant parties.
SMM believes that the two rounds of capacity replacement measures have had a positive impact on the development of the steel industry. Compared with the initial version, the 2021 version of the steel capacity replacement measures has had a greater impact on the development of the steel industry. China's pig iron capacity has declined more significantly, but there are still issues in the capacity replacement process, such as inadequate policy implementation, imperfect supervision and enforcement mechanisms, and mismatches with the industry development trends and demands. For example, some enterprises' new blast furnace capacity exceeds the announced capacity, and due to technological advancements, the capacity of new equipment is greater than that of the old equipment.