Burden of excess

Slower-than-expected industrial production in April should sound the alarm for steelmakers who have pinned too much hope on a V-shaped recovery of the Chinese economy.

As a tentative sign of bottoming out, accelerated industrial production in March has once again helped ease worries about China's 6.1 percent economic growth in the first quarter - the slowest in about a decade.

Riding on a belief that the country's 4-trillion-yuan stimulus package will effectively boost domestic demand, Chinese steelmakers have been ostensibly struggling to make a profit by keeping all their mills running to full capacity.