The improvement of the concentration of China's steel industry is conducive to the optimization of capacity structure and output control, to improve the pricing power of upstream raw materials, to the sharing of RESEARCH and development resources, to the sharing of customers and channels, and to enhance the industry's ultra-low emission capacity.
Recently, anshan Iron and Steel Group and the reorganization of the formal start. Under the restructuring plan, Bensteel will become a controlling subsidiary of Angang steel. After the restructuring, Angang will have a capacity of 63 million tons of crude steel, making it the second largest steelmaker in China and the third largest in the world. At this point, The integration of China's iron and steel industry has taken an important step, and the industry concentration has been promoted again.
At present, seven of the world's top ten steel enterprises announced by the World Steel Association are from China, indicating that the size of China's steel enterprises has been among the world's top. However, in China accounts for more than half of the world's crude steel production, the output of individual steel enterprises is insignificant. This reflects the low industrial concentration which is an important factor hindering the high quality development of China's iron and steel industry.
The concentration of a country's steel industry is often described by the proportion of the output of the largest mills in the country's total output. From this point of view, the output of the United States, Japan, the European Union's four largest steel enterprises accounted for 65% of their total steel output, 75%, 73%, South Korea's first two steel enterprises accounted for 85% of total steel output in South Korea. The crude steel output of China's top ten steel enterprises only accounts for about 40% of the country's total output. That is to say, although domestic steel enterprises in recent years to vigorously promote integration and restructuring, but the concentration of steel industry is still significantly lower than the level of developed countries.
Iron and steel industry concentration, one is conducive to the optimization of capacity structure and output control. Through the strong management and control mode composed of equity relations, it can not only avoid the waste of resources caused by repeated investment within the same group, but also tilt resources towards high value-added production capacity, and enable the whole industry to control output more efficiently and clear out quickly in the face of market fluctuations. Second, it is conducive to improving the pricing power of upstream raw materials. At present, China's iron ore external dependence is more than 80%, in the face of the international "three oligopoly" supply structure of imported iron ore, China's iron and steel industry is too dispersed demand side is difficult to form a centralized procurement force, disorderly competition is easy to drive up iron ore prices, increase industry development costs, compression of downstream manufacturing profits. Third, it is conducive to the sharing of R&D resources. In the process of transformation and upgrading of domestic iron and steel industry, scientific and technological innovation is the key to build market competitive advantage. From the perspective of r&d resources input and output, by improving industrial concentration, internal R&D resources can be integrated to achieve economies of scale effect of R&D costs, reduce r&d expenditure per unit product, and make the use of R&D resources more intensive. Fourth, it is conducive to the sharing of customers and channels, and the formation of business synergies between different regions and different product lines. Fifth, it will help enhance the industry's ultra-low emission capacity. In the "dual carbon" context, increasing the concentration of the steel industry can help achieve the goal of carbon peak and carbon neutral, and promote the green development of the steel industry.
The reorganization of Ansteel group and Bensteel Group is an important step to improve the concentration of China's steel industry. However, the integration of the iron and steel industry is not simply to improve the index of industry concentration, but to give play to the sharing and synergistic effect of enterprise groups in research and development, procurement, supply chain, sales and other fields through the integration of the industry, and truly achieve the improvement of industry operation efficiency and international competitiveness.
