Abstract
Overcapacity in China’s coal industry has serious negative impacts on the rational allocation of coal resources and stable operation of the national economy. Since 2016, the Chinese government has implemented a series of de-capacity policies to optimise coal production capacity. Timely policy effect assessment is of great significance to the government to guide high-quality development of the coal industry. This paper first reviews the dilemma encountered by China’s coal industry prior to 2016, and then analyses the progress and effect of coal industry de-capacity. The main results are as follows: (1) The capacity reduction is mainly distributed in the central and southwestern regions. Most of the coal mines are state-owned, and there is a prominent worker resettlement problem. (2) The capacity optimisation policy has accelerated the implementation of the overall spatial planning of China’s coal supply. China’s coal production centre has shifted from the central and eastern regions to the west, and the industry’s high-quality development pattern has taken shape. (3) China’s coal industrial profitability has constantly been improving, industry concentration has increased significantly, and coal mining has become safer. (4) Due to the regional heterogeneity, the de-capacity policy effect has significant differences in coal production capacity and employee reduction in various regions. Finally, regarding the optimisation of China’s coal production capacity, some policy implications are given.
Highlights
In 2016, China’s ensured reserves of coal were 249.23 billion tons, ranking third in the world [1].China’s abundant coal resources are distributed across all provinces except Shanghai
In southern China, the coal resources are mainly distributed in the Guizhou, Yunnan, and Sichuan provinces (Figure 1)
Deng et al [40] measured the Capacity utilisation ratio (CUR) of China’s steel industry and used breakpoint regression to evaluate the de-capacity policy. They found the implementation of the de-capacity policy has solved the problem of overcapacity in the steel industry to a certain extent, but the de-capacity policy has only played a relatively good effect when it was first introduced, and the effect has declined in the long run
Summary
In 2016, China’s ensured reserves of coal were 249.23 billion tons, ranking third in the world [1]. Due to the abundant coal resources and the shortage of other energy sources, China has been the largest coal producer and consumer in the world for many years [2]. In recent years, affected by such factors as slowing economic growth and energy structure adjustment, coal demand growth was significantly below expectations, supply capacity has remained excessive and supply and demand have fallen seriously out of balance, resulting in a general decline in corporate profits, chaotic market competition and increased safety production hazards. It has adversely affected economic development, employment and social stability.
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