General Situation of Development of Steel Tube-making Industry over Recent Years(Part Ⅰ)

Briefed are the developments of domestic steel section and steel tube-making industries in terms of production, product types and technological equipment, etc. in the period from 1949 to 2006. In the country the development speed of steel tube-making industry had been faster than that of steel section-making industry in the first 30 years after the birth of new China(i.e., 1949~1978), while in the following 20 years(i.e., 1979~1998) the situation had been reversed. And over the last 8 years(i.e., 1999~2006), the development paces of the said two steel product-manufacturing industries had been almost the same. Relevant situations of domestic steel tube-making industry in the said 8 years are described, covering production capacities, product import and export and consumption as well as the capacities and centralization level of seamless steel tube makers with their individual annual capacity over 200 000 tons. It is forecast that the future general technological development of domestic steel tube industry will follow the way of eliminating the backward, proper centralization and decentralization, and energy-saving and waste emission reducing.