As of April 21, about 99% of China's sizable industrial enterprises under the close monitoring of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) had returned to normal operational orders under the Chinese authorities' persistent efforts in aiding with such enterprises in resuming businesses from the suspension of the COVID-19, according to the MIIT sharing on April 23.

“Sizable industrial enterprises have basically all returned to businesses,” Huang Libin, MIIT's spokesman shared at a press conference on Thursday.

China's sizeable industrial enterprises are those with the minimum annual business revenue at ¥20 million ($2.8 million), and those under MIIT's monitoring include 41 industrial sectors including both nonferrous and ferrous companies.

As of April 21, about 95% of the employees working for these enterprises have been back to work, and Hubei province, the epicenter of the pandemic in China, posted the resumption of operations at about 98% and the return of employees at about 92%, according to MIIT.

As for the steel industry, Chinese steel mills have also recovered from the disruption caused by COVID-19 such as delayed resumption of downstream users and transportation blocks in late February.

As of April 23, the capacity utilization rate of 247 Chinese steel mills exceeded 80% to stand at 80.59% or returned back to the same level as last December 6, after increasing for seven consecutive weeks.

Survey of China Iron & Steel Association also showed that 178 of its 191 member steel mills were in normal operation as of April 19, as reported.

Over January-March, growth of these sizable industry enterprises declined 8.4% on year due to the impact of COVID-19, but in March alone, the year-on-year decline slowed to 1.1%, a jump of 12.4 percentage points from January and February and the ferrous smelting and processing industry, among the total, recorded a growth of 4.1% on year, according to the release of China's National Bureau of Statistics earlier on April 17, without disclosing the exact value.

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(From Mysteel Global)