CICC: Restart export license management to guide the high-quality development of the steel industry

The Zhitong Finance App learned that CICC released a research report saying that recently, the Ministry of Commerce and the General Administration of Customs jointly issued a notice deciding to adjust the “Catalogue of Goods Subject to Export License Administration (2025)” to include some steel products in the scope of export license management. One of the core purposes of this new steel export policy is to reduce the space for illegal operations such as “pay for exports” and “linked exports”. After the implementation of the new policy, the cost and traceability of steel export compliance increased markedly. Currently, the overall valuation of the steel sector is still in a historically low range. The competitive pattern of the industry is expected to continue to improve in the context of export compliance and the collaborative promotion of anti-domestic policies. The Matthew effect is expected to be highlighted, and core assets are expected to be doubly attacked by Davis.

CICC's main views are as follows:

Export license management has been restarted to guide the high-quality development of the industry

The reason behind the restart of export license management for steel products is that China's steel exports have continued to “increase and decrease in volume and price” in the past three years: as of November 2025, China's steel exports reached 107.7 million tons, up 6.7% year on year, a record high, while the average export price fell by more than 10% year on year, exports of low value-added products such as steel billets and hot coils rose sharply, “external volume” competition is intense, and “anti-dumping” investigations into China's steel are frequent.

CICC believes that one of the core purposes of this new steel export policy is to reduce the space for illegal operations such as “pay for exports” and “linked exports”. After the implementation of the new policy, compliance costs and traceability of steel exports will increase markedly. Illegal exports are expected to be curbed, promote quantitative expansion and qualitative improvement of steel exports, break down the “external volume”, encourage high-end and green transformation and upgrading of enterprises, and guide the high-quality development of the industry.

Exports may be under pressure for 26 years, and export prices and structure are expected to improve

Illegal exports have reached a certain scale in 2025, and domestic steel exports are expected to decline significantly in 2026. At the same time, as low-price and low-quality products passively withdraw from the export market, it will improve China's steel export competition pattern and help restore the export price center and export steel profits.

Steel's reversal in '26 can still be expected; there is no need to be too pessimistic about the industry's supply and demand pattern

CICC believes that this new export policy marks the country's attention to internal export issues. The 26-year industry anti-domestic trade policy is worth looking forward to. Through industry hierarchical differentiation and production capacity replacement, backward and inefficient production capacity will be gradually eliminated. Supply changes in the steel industry are expected to accelerate in 26 years, and there is no need to be too pessimistic about supply and demand in the industry.

Aspect of the target

We mainly recommend Valin Steel (000932.SZ) and Tiangong International (00826).

risk factors

The strength and pace of implementation of export licensing policies fell short of expectations; overseas trade frictions intensified.