"This merger and reorganization, the government is doing to create a market environment, not even mentioning how many competitive enterprises to form in the steel industry, but focusing on solving some problems encountered in the merger and reorganization process." Department of Industrial Policy, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Director Feng Fei said.

Feng Fei was the above statement made at the 3rd China Steel Technology Economic High-end Forum held on September 13th.

The reporter learned on the spot that the organizational structure of domestic steel production capacity is still unreasonable, and the number of enterprises is large. The development pattern of industry-leading enterprises has not yet formed. Take the market concentration of the top ten companies in China as an example. At the end of last year, it was 32.4%. The concentration of the top four companies was around 21%, while the concentration of the top four in Japan was 78%, and that in the United States was 67%.

In the current steel industry, factors such as overcapacity, decentralized enterprises, and single means of competition have caused the operating efficiency of related enterprises to deteriorate. In the first half of this year, 88 enterprise groups listed in the association's financial indicators achieved a profit of 7.48 billion yuan, an increase of 4.276 billion yuan. However, the main business of steel still lost 660 million yuan, and it has lost 11 consecutive quarters.

Feng Fei believes that the more difficult this period, especially in the period when the industrial structure needs to be adjusted, the Chinese steel industry has entered the period of merger and reorganization. "From the perspective of international experience, the timing of mergers and acquisitions is often relatively difficult but at the same time seeing the dawn of the future." He said.

It is worth noting that the merger and reorganization of China's steel industry has been implemented for many years, but there are not many cases of real success. On the contrary, some negative cases have always existed. These lessons have made enterprises dare to make a fuss when they carry out the next merger and reorganization.

Taking Baosteel Group as an example, as the vanguard of domestic steel enterprises, the company has merged and reorganized since 1998, and successively brought steel companies such as Bayi Iron and Steel and Handan Iron and Steel into the ranks. Xu Lejiang, chairman of Baosteel Group, realized that under the path of “the market plays a decisive role in resource allocation and secondly plays the role of the government”, “it is particularly important for the government to play a better role in this direction”.

In the high-end dialogue session of the above-mentioned forum, Xu Lejiang said that Baosteel did not restructure this year, but after the merger and reorganization, the product structure, enterprise personnel and management between enterprises were far away. "If the merger is a private enterprise, as a merger, In a fully competitive industry, private enterprises have no control over their total wages, and the SASAC is managing the total wages of Baosteel."

"Whether it comes from taxation or environmental protection starting next year, who will go to law enforcement, what to do if it breaks the law, don't use bad money to drive good money." He said that if these problems are not solved, whoever merges and reorganizes today, whoever may be fast .

Faced with these potential problems, Feng Fei’s statement is that the general idea of this round of mergers and acquisitions is a problem-oriented policy, that is, the government solves the problems faced in mergers and acquisitions by creating and optimizing the market environment. These problems will include four major issues, such as taxation, inadequate financial means, land policy, and personnel placement in mergers and acquisitions.

At present, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has taken the lead in drafting the "Guiding Opinions on Further Optimizing the Market Environment for Enterprise Mergers and Reorganizations", which was released on March 7 this year. "The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is implementing relevant policies, especially to communicate and coordinate with the departments that hold the policy. It is hoped that these high-gold policies will be put in place by the end of this year." Feng Fei said.

In fact, the relevant ministries and commissions have repeatedly pushed forward the process of mergers and acquisitions, and have clarified specific indicators of the concentration of the steel industry. Among them, in the "Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Merger and Reorganization of Key Industry Enterprises" issued on January 22 last year, it was proposed that by 2015, the industrial concentration of the top 10 steel enterprise groups will reach 60%, forming 3~5. An enterprise group with core competitiveness and strong international influence, and 6 to 7 enterprise groups with strong regional market competitiveness.

"Every time you mention (the target), you can't reach it every time." Feng Fei said that this merger and reorganization, the government is doing to create a market environment, such as restructuring is higher than the cost of new construction, it is necessary to study high reasons Involving the market and insufficient financial means, we must solve it.

Feng Fei also said that in addition to the government level, the steel industry and the enterprise level should also act, rather than wait, and hope that after a new round of reshuffle, the industry will have a new look.