Reform, mergers make Baowu bigger, stronger

China Baowu Steel Group, the nation's largest steelmaker, plans to merge more iron and steel companies amid the central government's deepening of State-owned enterprise reform.

"Being a State-owned capital investment company, China Baowu's output capacity is expected to reach 20 percent of the country's total through M&A," said Chen Derong, general manger of the group, stressing that the group has overfulfilled its capacity reduction target.

Last year, the company cut output by 9.97 million metric tons and in the first half of 2017 it slashed it by a further 3 million tons, which has reached 84.1 percent of the goal set for the period from 2016 to 2018.