Wuhan Iron says it's clean, denies charges of wrong-doing

Wuhan Iron & Steel (Group) Corp has always obeyed the World Trade Organization's principles of fairness, transparency and mutual benefits to conduct international trade, according to the group's spokesperson.

"We don't dump and we are against dumping. We take a proactive stance in international anti-dumping lawsuit that we are involved in. The company has won a number of cases in this regard," said Mei Yun, spokesperson for Wuhan Iron & Steel.

Meanwhile, the group has been slashing jobs to ease the pressure exerted by the economic slowdown on the iron and steel industry.

Ma Guoqiang, chairman of the group, said in March that half of the staff in the company will be transferred to other industries.

"It has been a general understanding that only part of the current workforce in the iron and steel industry will remain. Our company has been helping around 40,000 to 50,000 employees to find new jobs," said Ma.

According to Ma, these employees will retire, continue to work in non-iron and steel sectors of the company, or take up jobs in the local government or enterprises. Wuhan Iron & Steel (Group) started its operations in 1958 as the first large-scale iron and steel enterprise of China. Its long-term employees have been around 100,000.

The steel smelter has cut its production capacity by 4 to 5 million tons in the last decade. At the moment, the annual production capacity of the main factories of the company is 18 million tons.