China will gradually eliminate 225 small steel mills, and has planned to shut down 103 mills equipped by poor technologies in 2000 with a total production capacity of 4.5 million tons.

According to Director of State Metallurgy Administration, phasing out small steel mills and poor technologies is an important measure to improve the product quality, increase the production safety, reduce pollution, and conserve energy and resources...

The first quarter of 2000, China's steel production totals 29.83 million tons, with an increase of 3.2% from the same period of last year. China is a large steel producing country, and its total production of last year was 124.26 million tons. In 2000, it has been planned to keep the production below 110 million tons.