Nearly a thousand small- and medium-sized private steel enterprises that have just gone out of the macro-control shade in 2004 will have harder days in 2005 due to policy discrimination and cost restraint.
Starting from March 1, 2005, China has officially introduced automatic licensing system for iron ore import, when only those with annual crude steel output standing above 2m tons each and having a registered capital of over 10m yuan are qualified to import iron ore.
The automatic import licensing system will put many ineligible small and medium-sized steel plants in a situation when they are unable to purchase raw materials to maintain production.
Statistics show that as iron ore prices on Chinese market were higher than on international market in 2004, Chinese steel enterprises have one after another sought to seek import.
