CHINA is aiming to raise as much as 80 billion yuan (US$11.60 billion) for a special investment fund to help finance the restructuring of its steel industry, a statement said Friday.

    The fund will be run by a management vehicle in which top Chinese steelmaker China Baowu Steel Group, the U.S.-China Green Fund and China Merchants Group have each contributed 1 billion yuan as seed capital, a statement issued by the investors said Friday.

    The value of the fund will be between 40 billion yuan and 80 billion yuan, it said.

    China, the world’s largest producer and consumer of steel, has embarked on tough reforms to cut overcapacity in the sector as part of the country’s wide-ranging supply side reforms.

    The fund will help the sector get rid of excess capacity, shut down zombie enterprises, speed up mergers and reorganisation, and promote international cooperation on production, said Baowu chairman Ma Guoqiang at a signing ceremony in Shanghai.

    (SD-Agencies)