Beijing: Britian has pressed China to speed up its efforts to cut down steel production amid concerns that Chinese steelmakers are dumping excess on the global market, triggering a crisis in countries like the UK. British foreign secretary Philip Hammond discussed the issue of over-capacity in steel production with his Chinese counterpart here on Saturday.
“I urged China to accelerate its efforts to reduce levels of steel production,” he said. “The UK’s focus is on finding a long-term sustainable future for steel making at Port Talbot and across the UK, and I welcomed the potential interest of Chinese companies in investment in UK steel making,” he said. Mr Hammond met Wang Yi on his way to Hiroshima for the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting.
China had said that plans to shut steel mills over the next five years would cut capacity to an estimated 1.13 billion tonnes by 2020, a figure that still far exceeds domestic demand.
