Investment on fixed assets in China's iron and steel sector reached 260.3 billion yuan (about US$33 billion) last year, which Luo Bingsheng, vice-chairman of the industry's association, termed excessive.

But he noted growth of the investment has slowed down significantly to 0.81 percent year-on-year last year, 23.69 percentage points lower than the growth of the national total investment on fixed assets.

Luo warned iron and steel enterprises that the country's production capacity has outstripped market demand.

Luo said the emphasis of investment has shifted to high-end projects to produce more value-added products.

China produced 418.78 million tons of crude steel last year, a rise of 18.48 percent year-on-year, and its output of pig iron was 404.17 million tons, up 19.78 percent year-on-year.

China's apparent consumption of crude steel amounted to 384.05 million tons last year, accounting for 30.98 percent of the global total.

Domestically-made steel products accounted for a record 95.82 percent of China's steel market last year, 2.61 percentage points higher than the previous year.

China became the world's largest stainless steel producer last year with an output of 5.3 million tons, up 67.68 percent year-on-year.

(Xinhua News Agency February 3, 2007)