Plenty more where that came from FEW industries are in worse shape than China’s steel sector. Years of over-investment and a cooling economy have resulted in vast excess supply. Crude steel-making capacity reached a record level of 1.2 billion tonnes at the end of 2015. China’s steelmakers lost some $10 billion last year, with more than 90% of those losses coming from state-owned firms. This is the background to the news on September 20th that two state-run steel firms, Baosteel and Wuhan Iron and Steel, are to be joined.