China to Step up Efforts to Eliminate Outdated Industrial Capacity

China will continue to shut down outdated capacity in major industrial sectors to reduce pollution, save energy, and upgrade industry, the State Council, or Cabinet, said in a statement released on April 6.

The sectors include power, coal, steel, cement, non-ferrous metals, coke, paper making, tannery and printing and dyeing, according to the statement.

The country will eliminate by the end of 2010 more than 50 million kilowatts of small coal-fired power generators and 8,000 small coal mines which are lacking in work safety standards, overly energy-intensive or not environmentally friendly.

Small coking coal makers with a coking chamber height of less than 4.3 meters will be closed by the end of 2010, the statement said.

It said the country will phase out mill furnaces below 6,300 kilovolts in the ferro-alloy sector and calcium carbide by the end of 2010.

In the steel industry, furnaces smaller than 400 cubic meters will be shut down by the end of 2011.

The country also plans to close outdated capacity in the construction materials sector, light industry and textile industry sectors, the statement added.

The government has been stepping up the shutdown of outdated production capacity, which has been blamed for pollution and the holding back of industrial upgrading.

In 2009, China closed small thermal power stations generating 26.17 million kilowatts of electricity and shut down backward steel-making facilities with production capacity of 16.91 million tonnes, according to the government report delivered to the parliament in March.

The report also said the country phased out outdated capacity of 21.13 million tonnes in the iron-smelting industry, 74.16 million tonnes in the cement industry and 18.09 million tonnes in the coke industry.