For China's would-be steel barons, these are troublesome times. In its efforts to cool down the economy, the government has been trying to regain control of an industry which was once an icon of Communist economic power. But Guo Guang-chang, one of China's richest entrepreneurs, is undeterred. Steel remains at the heart of the conglomerate he is building. China's steel production has more than doubled in the past five years-the extra output being equivalent to more than Amer-iqa's entire production. A third of the new capacity has come from private-sector operators like Mr Guo. His company, Shanghai Fosun High Technology, is the city's biggest private company, with five listed subsidiaries. Mr Guo expects steel demand to outpace GDP growth by 4 or 5 percentage points for several years. Half of that demand comes from the construction frenzy in properly.
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