Steel Industry Charts Two-Year Plan: Targeting 4% Annual Growth with Zero New Capacity

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, together with several other government agencies, has released the “Steel Industry Stable Growth Work Plan (2025–2026),” which establishes an approximate 4% annual increase in value-added output as the sector’s goal over the coming two years. Framed around the twin imperatives of stabilizing expansion and curbing unproductive internal competition, the plan lays out a roadmap for structural optimization and the pursuit of high-quality development.

Under the new guidelines, production capacity and output will be managed with precision, and steelmakers will fall under a graded, category-based regulatory regime. The document emphatically bans any additional capacity, directing raw materials and other inputs toward industry leaders to encourage market-driven consolidation and maintain a dynamic balance between supply and demand. Industry experts highlight that equipment modernization and low-carbon transformation emerge as the plan’s strategic priorities. To that end, companies are instructed to accelerate the retirement of outdated assets—particularly legacy blast furnaces and converters—and complete ultra-low emission retrofits on more than 80% of their capacity by the end of 2025.