Steel
Concomitant with automotive production and other steel-consuming industries, China has been rapidly increasing its steel production. Iron ore production kept pace with steel production in the early 1990s but was soon outpaced by imported iron ore and other metals in the early 2000s. Steel production, an estimated 140 million tons in 2000, rose to more than 420 million tons by 2007.
Before the first five-year plan (1953–57), China had only one major steel center— Anshan, in the northeast—and several minor ones. All these produced 1.93 million tons of pig iron and 1.35 million tons of steel in 1952. By 1995, China was producing 92,970 million tons of crude steel and 101,700 million tons of pig iron. China had one trillion tons of confirmed coal reserves and an estimated five trillion tons of coal reserves and 48.7 billion tons of iron ore in 2000. Anshan continues to be the hub of the industry, but other huge steel complexes have been constructed at Baotou, Benxi (about 50 km east of Anshan), Taiyuan, Wuhan, and Ma'anshan (near Nanjing).
Read more about this topic: Industry Of The People's Republic Of China
Famous quotes containing the word steel:
“The steel decks rock with the lightning shock, and shake with the
great recoil,
And the sea grows red with the blood of the dead and reaches for his spoil—
But not till the foe has gone below or turns his prow and runs,
Shall the voice of peace bring sweet release to the men behind the
guns!”
—John Jerome Rooney (1866–1934)
“For when they meet, the tensile air
Like fine steel strains under the weight
Of messages that both hearts bear—
Pure passion once, now purest hate....”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“It is not as easy to emigrate with steel mills as it is with the manuscript of a novel.”
—Golo Mann (b. 1909)