Baoshan Steel chairman has seen the fierce competition as more of a normalcy and urged to keep a close watch on the trend of the macro economy in better response to the changing market.

He said China now has a steel capacity of more than 600 million tons and the capacity is – taking into consideration of the 57 million tons of steel projects under construction - for sure to exceed 700 million tons soon. Boosted by the governments four trillion yuan fiscal stimulus, small mills whose production and sales of long product like rebar rising by 21 percent in the first half were keeping profitable. Some large mills, however, saw their output growth of just three percent.

The market has changed a lot over the past year. After the outbreak of the financial crisis last year, many carmakers had stopped placing new orders for five consecutive months. Yet Baoshan Steel started the year of 2009 with ample orders for auto steel, so huge that it had to turn away customers. The lesson the mill and others must learn is that efforts should be done to study the trend of the macro economy in the global context so as to make early preparations for their operations.