In a recent news conference hold by Ministry of Commerce, Wangxinpei, spokesman of the ministry, remarked that up to now, the volume of imported steel has reached $ 800 billion, and it's expected to overpass $ 1 trillion by 2010.
According to the statistics from China Steel Association, the export of steel billet during January to April reached 2.65 million tons, up by 92.2%; the exported steel reached 21.28 million tons, up by 132%; the total export of billet and steel reached 8.03 million tons. Wangxinpei estimated that after some steps like reducing export rebate tax in the first half of this year, China has been striving to improve the structure of exporting section and actively enlarge imports, which is expected to overpass $ 1 trillion by 2010.
Some analysts point out the original idea of the Commerce Ministry to increase steel imports was aiming to balance the deficit of ex-import trade, caused by the overgrowing of Chinese exported steel. If, however, the steel imports exceed $ 1 trillion, the domestic market will be not able to digest them. After the constant adjustment of steel export rebate, the export momentum has been controlled effectively, resulting in that much of the steel manufacturing capacity is bound to stay in domestic market, which would face much more pressure when the import volume is too high. Unless there will be some relating policies launched by the ministry, say, reducing the importing tax of steel, the figure( $ 1 trillion) would not come into true.