OREANDA-NEWS. March 22, 2012. A foreign press forecast China growth in demand for steel to slow to 5.7 percent this year, almost half the average growth rate of 11.1 percent over the past three years.

The government now seems unlikely to support its steel sector, which had benefited a lot from the USD 600 billion state-backed economic bail-out package during the period shortly after the global financial crisis.