Thank you very much.
Good afternoon, honourable members of the committee. On behalf of our association, I thank you for the opportunity to present to you today as part of your study on budget 2017.
The Canadian Steel Producers Association is the national voice of Canada's $14-billion primary steel production industry. Our producers are integral to the automotive, energy, construction, and other demanding industrial supply chains here in Canada. Our mandate is to work with governments and industry partners to advance public policies that will enable a globally competitive business environment for our members and our supply chain stakeholders.
As committee members are undoubtedly aware, it's a remarkably difficult time in the global steel industry, and Canada is not immune to or sheltered from truly international challenges in the sector.
Global excess production capacity in steel has now risen to in excess of 700 million metric tons annually, with the People's Republic of China, through a variety of state supports, by itself now maintaining more than 425 million metric tons of the total global surplus. For context, that's almost 30 times the size of the total Canadian market. This is despite declining domestic demand in China. Widespread institutional ownership of and support for China's steel sector is the single largest force disrupting established trade patterns and degrading the pricing of steel products globally today.
As a result, on a worldwide scale, the steel industry has seen a significant increase in market-distorting dumping and circumvention practices, both from China directly and from a variety of other global producers whose home markets have in many cases suffered as the result of unfair Chinese competition. Once their home markets are inundated with subsidized product from China, other global producers are left with no choice but to export aggressively, dumping yet more product on the global market and further degrading global prices.
While our association would commend the Government of Canada for its work in pressing forward on the development of multinational solutions to the problem of global overcapacity in the sector, which has recently included statements from the North American leaders summit, the G7, and the G20 on the importance of reducing capacity through the elimination of state supports and other subsidies, and while we would encourage Canada's continued senior-level participation at the global forum on steel excess capacity, which was established as an outcome of the latest G20, we would also caution that international solutions on overcapacity will not be quick in coming.
For context as I make this statement, I would note that from 2003 to 2015, China has issued nine separate—