Steel city feels pollution impact

Beijing
Struggling from weak demand and facing new rules to clean up pollution, some firms in China's top steel producing city have scaled back production or even closed completely, lifting local steel prices off 20-year lows.
China is using tougher environmental rules to help tackle a severe steel capacity glut that has depressed prices and saddled much of the sector - the world's biggest - with crippling debt. Tangshan, which is 200 km (124 miles) east of Beijing and produces more steel a year than the United States, has been on the frontline of campaigns to cut smog and tackle overcapacity. The city has pledged to reduce its annual crude steel capacity by 28 million tonnes from 2013 until 2017, roughly a fifth of its total, and its steel firms are now being forced to undergo costly upgrades. "There are so many plants that are having to cut or stop production," said Zhou Junjia, a sales manager at Baifeng Iron and Steel Corporation, noting that four privately owned steel firms nearby had recently been forced to close.