A worker loans steel at a steel factory in Huaibei city, East China's Anhui province, Jan 20, 2015. [Photo provided to China Daily]

China's output grew at the slowest pace on record last year while steelmakers delayed cutting jobs and closing plants during the weakest year of economic expansion since 1990. The country's output of 822.7 million tons was more than double that of the combined next four largest producers, Japan, the United States, India and South Korea, according to statistics from the World Steel Association.

Iron ore imports fell 9.5 percent from record in December to 78.57 million tons last month, the customs agency said.

The country will continue to phase out overcapacity in its steel industry, which can produce 1.16 billion tons, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said last Thursday.

Domestic steel consumption shrank 3.4 percent to 738.3 million tons last year, the China Iron & Steel Association estimates. That was the first demand contraction since the 1990s, according to Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.

Steel reinforcement-bar, used in construction and traded on the Shanghai Futures Exchange, fell 0.8 percent to 2,477 yuan ($396) a ton on Monday. Prices are down 28 percent in the last 12 months.