Business News March 11

On March 5, the third session of the Twelfth National People's Congress opened in Beijing. Premier Li Keqiang made a report on the work of the government. In 2014, my country's GDP reached 63.6 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.4%, and the main objectives and tasks of economic and social development for the year were completed. At the same time, the government work report also clarifies the main goals of my country's economic development in 2015. The opportunities and challenges for the development of the steel industry coexist. The key points related to steel in the government work report are extracted and commented as follows.

Overall deployment

Focusing on the “dual goals” of maintaining medium-to-high-speed growth and moving toward the mid-to-high-end level, adhere to the “dual combination” of stabilizing policies, stabilizing expectations, and promoting reforms and structural adjustments; GDP growth by about 7%; consumer prices by about 3%; Exports will increase by about 6%; energy consumption will drop by more than 3.1%; proactive fiscal policies need to be strengthened to increase efficiency. This year, we plan to arrange a fiscal deficit of 1.62 trillion yuan, an increase of 270 billion yuan from last year, and the deficit rate will increase from last year’s 2.1% to 2.3%; prudent monetary policy should be moderately tight, and broad money M2 is expected to grow by about 12%.

Comment: Lower the target value of a number of economic indicators and actively adapt to the new economic normal. The GDP growth target was lowered to 7%, the CPI growth rate was lowered to 3%, and the target growth rate of indicators such as investment, consumption, import and export, and money supply were also lowered to varying degrees. This will obviously put more pressure on the iron and steel industry that has overcapacity, and iron and steel enterprises need to adapt to the new normal as soon as possible to turn passive into active.

Reform and Opening

This year, we will cancel and decentralize a batch of administrative approval items, cancel all non-administrative approval approvals, and establish a standardized administrative approval management system; formulate a negative list of market access, publish a list of provincial government powers and responsibilities; significantly reduce the scope of government-approved investment projects , Decentralize the approval authority, greatly reduce the pre-approval of investment projects, implement online parallel processing of project approvals, greatly relax private investment market access, and encourage social capital to initiate the establishment of equity investment funds; accelerate the pilot program of state-owned capital investment companies and operating companies to create marketization Operate the platform to improve the efficiency of state-owned capital operations; revise the catalogue for the guidance of foreign investment industries, focus on expanding the opening up of the service industry and general manufacturing, reduce foreign investment restrictions by half, fully implement the management system of universal filing and limited approval, and substantially decentralize the encouraged category The right to approve the project, actively explore the pre-entry national treatment plus negative list management model; implement the foreign investment management method based on the filing system; promote the cooperation construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road; sign China and South Korea, China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, accelerate China-Japan-Korea Free Trade Area negotiations, promote negotiations with GCC, Israel and other free trade areas, strive to complete China-ASEAN Free Trade Area upgrade negotiations and regional comprehensive economic partnership agreement negotiations, and build an Asia-Pacific Free Trade Zone Trade zone.

Comment: Further cancel and decentralize a batch of government approval items, greatly reduce the scope of government-approved investment projects, and delegate approval power. For iron and steel companies, this saves time for project approval and related procedures. On the other hand, it is also conducive to the implementation of corporate investment in technological transformation and structural adjustment projects, and will play a positive role in promoting industrial restructuring, transformation and upgrading. . The implementation of the foreign investment management method based on the filing system will help iron and steel enterprises to accelerate the pace of "going out".

Stable growth and structural adjustment

Initiate the implementation of a number of new major engineering projects; this year's central budgetary investment has increased to 477.6 billion yuan; railway investment must remain above 800 billion yuan, and the newly commissioned mileage must exceed 8,000 kilometers; the investment scale of major water conservancy projects under construction exceeds 800 billion yuan; This year, 7.4 million new affordable housing projects have been arranged, of which 5.8 million shantytowns will be renovated, an increase of 1.1 million, and the transformation of urban dilapidated houses will be included in the scope of the shed reform policy; the “Belt and Road” construction will be combined with regional development and opening up to strengthen the new Asia European Continental Bridge, land-sea port fulcrum construction; promote the coordinated development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, take the lead in making substantial breakthroughs in transportation integration, ecological environmental protection, industrial upgrading and transfer; formulate and implement marine strategic plans; implement "Made in China 2025", adhere to Driven by innovation, intelligent transformation, strengthening the foundation, and green development, accelerating the transition from a manufacturing power to a manufacturing power; formulating an "Internet +" action plan to promote the integration of mobile Internet, cloud computing, big data, and the Internet of Things with modern manufacturing to promote e-commerce , Industrial Internet and Internet finance develop healthily, and guide Internet companies to expand into the international market.

Comment: The scale of railway investment remains high, the scale of water conservancy investment has increased significantly compared with last year, and the scale of shed reform continues to increase. The performance of the real estate industry was sluggish last year, and my country's apparent steel consumption declined, which is also the main reason for the overall poor profitability of the steel industry. Increased investment in railway, water conservancy and affordable housing projects this year will help boost the growth of my country's steel demand, and it is a positive factor for the entire industry.

Environmental protection

This year’s carbon dioxide emissions intensity will be reduced by more than 3.1%, chemical oxygen demand and ammonia nitrogen emissions will be reduced by about 2%, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions will be reduced by about 3% and 5% respectively; promote zero growth in coal consumption in key areas; implement water Pollution prevention and control action plan, strengthen the treatment of rivers and lakes, seawater pollution, water pollution sources and agricultural non-point source pollution, implement supervision of the whole process from water source to tap; promote third-party management of environmental pollution; do a good job in environmental protection tax legislation.

Comment: Whether it is the new environmental protection law that was implemented in 2015, or the public's continued high attention to air quality, the country's attention to environmental protection has reached an unprecedented height. For my country's steel companies, whether they can achieve compliance with emissions has been the key to their continued survival and development in the future. It is foreseeable that the future development of my country's steel industry will be more constrained by environmental protection.

 (Source: World Metal Herald)