Carbon reduction and bulk commodity prices have been become two regular topics at the routine meetings of China’s State Council and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang again commented on the two matters, sharing more measures at a meeting of the council members on July 7, according to a post by the Chinese government on its website.
As for bulk commodity prices, “the Chinese authorities will continue to monitor the impact on the related enterprises’ operations and businesses and to maintain the stability and effectiveness of monetary policy, avoiding capital flushing into the market but lowering the reserve requirement ratio whenever needed,” Li said at the meeting.
At the same time, “financial support should be intensified to the industrial enterprises with the medium, small, and micro-sized firms in particular to help them reduce financing costs,” he added.
China’s domestic steel prices have shown signs of strengthening again recently, and the national price of HRB400E 20mm dia rebar under Mysteel’s assessment, for example, gained for the third day to Yuan 5,044/t ($778/t) on July 7, or having returned to the Yuan 5,000/t threshold after having fallen below since June 22, about the time when a series of restrictive measures were imposed on coal and iron ore mining, steelmaking and steel re-rolling for the grand celebration on July 1.
Regarding low-carbon economy, Li mentioned that monetary policy should be rolled out to aid with carbon emission reduction attempts, clean energy, lower energy consumption intensity, and new technological development, and social capitals are welcome to go into such sectors too.
As part of efforts, the country will also plan to launch national carbon emission quota trading from the power houses sometime in July, and more industrial sectors will be added into the carbon emission quota trading to reduce greenhouse gas emission via market forces, he added.
Also on July 7, China’s National Development and Reform Commission issued a 16-page document, listing some of general guidelines on how to promote circular economy in the 14th Five-Year Plan period over 2021-2025 via the means such as recycling nonferrous and ferrous materials, as reported.
All these are clear signs that China has been serious about the carbon emission reduction, even though many overseas market sources remain dubious about the seriousness of China’s efforts in the aspect, especially when the country’s steel output surged 13.9% on year to 473 million tonnes over January-May.
It is also true, though, in the initial stage, the efforts will probably be in baby steps to try out various paths at the same time to identify the most feasible and effective means.
Written by Hongmei Li, li.hongmei@mysteel.com
This article has been published under an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.
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