Regulation for steel starts to have effect

CHINA exported 5.94 million tons of rolled steel in July. This represents a growth of 66 percent over the same month of last year, but a decline of 420,000 tons, or 6.6 percent, from the previous month, customs sources said on Saturday.

Zhou Xizeng, an analyst with CITIC Securities, said the month-on-month drop indicated that the government's efforts to regulate steel exports had begun to work. He forecast the exports would go further down in August and September.

Domestic steel makers believe the government is unlikely to further increase export duties on steel in the coming few months while observing the effectiveness of the macro control measures it has already taken.

However, experts said the government will draw up qualification requirements for steel exporters as soon as possible to curb exports.

The number of steel exporters will possibly drop to several hundred from the current more than 10,000 when such requirements are enforced, experts predicted.

Customs sources said that in the first seven months of this year, China exported 39.7 million tons of rolled steel, up 92.2 percent on last year.

Also, the country's iron ore imports went up 35.9 percent year on year to 33.61 million tons in July. The arrivals for the January-July period amounted to 222 million tons, up 19 percent.