As China has slimmed down its bloated steel sector, the western region of Xinjiang has felt the pain even more than the industry’s heartland to the east, threatening efforts to develop a restive area that is home to the mostly Muslim Uighur people.
RUBY LIAN AND MICHAEL MARTINA
Reuters
11:18AM October 17, 2016
As China has slimmed down its bloated steel sector, the western region of Xinjiang has felt the pain even more than the industry’s heartland to the east, threatening efforts to develop a restive area that is home to the mostly Muslim Uighur people.
More than 10 million tonnes of steel production capacity in Xinjiang – enough to produce about a tenth of annual US output – has beenshut in an area where Beijing has encouraged investment in industries ranging from steel to textiles, in the hope of stimulating growth and curbing unrest by boosting jobs.
The decline in the fortunes of Xinjiang’s steel sector highlights the challenge Chinese policymakers have faced ensuring job cuts do not strain social cohesion or undermine stability.
China aims to lay off five to six million workers over the next two to three years in the country to curb industrial overcapacity and pollution, and will spend nearly 150 billion yuan ($A29.5 billion) to cover layoffs in just the coal and steel sectors, sources told Reuters.
“The situation is very severe. There are many newly built steel mills being closed and steel prices have tumbled,” said a sales official at a unit of Xinjiang Ba Yi Iron and Steel Co, noting the unit was losing 300-400 yuan a tonne.
The official declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak to media, but at least seven mills were built in western regions under Beijing’s investment drive.
Thousands of steel jobs are estimated to have gone in Xinjiang after some “irrational” investments from 2010, said Chen Ziqi of China International Engineering Consulting Corporation.
Human resources’ minister, Yin Weimin, early this year said China expected to lay off 1.8 million workers in the steel and coal sector, or 15 per cent of the total industry workforce.
But Xinjiang is particularly vulnerable given its relatively sparse population and limited export opportunities, even with China’s ambition to create a new Silk road and economic belt stretching from Western China to Central Asia and Europe.
“Xinjiang’s location is a big problem. Its internal demand hasn’t picked up sufficiently to match the expanded capacity,” said Jiang Feitao, a policy researcher at the China Academy of Social Sciences, a state thinktank.
With Beijing leading a “war on pollution”, traditional steelmaking provinces such as Hebei in the north and Shandong in the east have been seen as priorities to cut capacity, but, by early this year, Xinjiang had suffered far more.
This could concern Beijing, which has blamed violence in the area on Islamist militants seeking an independent state for Uighurs.
With most of the workforce in Xinjiang’s mainly northern steel mills Han Chinese, the closures are unlikely to have any immediate impact on stability, though Beijing would monitor the situation closely, experts said.
“Any time there is a decline in employment it will have some kind of social impact, even if it’s the case that not very many people lose their jobs, because it will mean diminished prospects for future employment,” said Barry Sautman, an expert on China’s ethnic politics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.
Xinjiang’s 2015 steel output tumbled 39 per cent to 7.40 million tonnes, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data showed, while industry sources said capacity utilization had fallen as low as 30-40 per cent versus a nationwide average of 65-70 per cent.
On the other hand, despite promising to cut capacity by 60 million tonnes over 2013-2017, Hebei’s 2015 steel output rose 1.3 per cent to 188.3 million tonnes, according to NBS data.
“Given the premium on stability in Xinjiang is even higher because of the ethnic issues, then the government will try to ensure there is no visible social tension coming out of this,” said Nicholas Bequelin, Amnesty International’s East Asia director and an expert on Xinjiang.
The prospect of new steel demand in China’s central and western regions was also used by miners such as Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton to justify expansion, creating an iron ore glut that has sent prices plunging 60 per cent in two years.
Xinjiang’s Communist Party chief, Zhang Chunxian, told media in January it would not approve new projects and stop subsidising inefficient plants or power prices.
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