A recent report has claimed that Chine is under-reporting the amount of steel it makes by about 40 million tonnes per year in an attempt to drive up prices and then sell the surplus to increase profits from their steel exports.

Meps, a UK steel consultancy, have claimed that the country outputted 672 million tonnes of steel, rather than the 627 million that they claimed to have put out. In addition to this, a number of plants that should be shut down due to the amount of pollution they produce are being kept open due to increased local demand.

The report claims that China have disguised the fact the mills are still churning out metal by declaring that output is lower than is the case.

Terance Ko, a steel analyst at the Hatch Consulting group in China, commented “Mr Fish’s numbers seem entirely plausible and is in line with our own estimate.”

Xu Zhongbo, analyst with Beijing Metal Consulting, added “If the country is curbing capacity … then [a specific province] will report lower steel production. If the government’s demand to limit production is not too great, the province will report the actual figure.”