Beijing Shougang Co., the Shenzhen-listed arm of China’s Shougang Group, says it has more than doubled its net profit over the first half of this year to Yuan 9.36 million ($1.52m). However, this was still less than 0.01% of its operating income of Yuan 12.66 billion over the same period, Kallanish notes.

In 2013, Shougang recorded a net loss of Yuan 229m after seeing significant losses over most of the year until the fourth quarter. In order to boost the listed arm’s results, the parent company transferred control of its Qianan Iron and Steel plant, a profitable integrated 8 million tonnes/year longs and flats producer in Hebei, to Beijing Shougang. The transaction was completed on 25 April this year.

Over January-June the company produced 3.82 million tonnes of iron, 3.79mt of crude steel and 3.61mt of finished steel products. Its iron and crude steel output fell “slightly behind” its production plan, the company says, with both figures being just under 50% of the company’s full-year targets. Finished steel output meanwhile was slightly over 50% of the full year target, Kallanish observes.