China’s Two Sessions held no real surprises for the commodity markets and hinted that the country faced an uphill battle to meet some of the critical energy, industrial and climate targets set under its 14th five-year plan (2021-2025).

Growing speculation over mandatory steel output cuts and capacity reductions in China may have boosted sentiment and steel prices lately, but market participants remain cautious over the outlook for the market.

On March 28, 2025, China's five major government departments jointly issued an announcement to comprehensively strengthen the supervision of "Buying Bill Export (Export without VAT)" for steel. "Buying Bill Export" refers to enterprises evading taxes through third-party customs clearance qualifications, false contracts, low-priced invoices or underground foreign exchange settlement, which is extremely risky.