China's war on smog sends shivers across commodities sector

[WorldNews]

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By Josephine Mason and Muyu Xu BEIJING (Reuters) - China's crackdown on exhaust-spewing factories that shut or slashed output this week at sites including steel mills, textile and cement factories and coal-fired power plants will ripple across major bulk commodity markets into 2017. City and regional governments shut thousands of plants in China's industrial heartland, from Hebei province that surrounds Beijing to Shandong southeast of the capital, to combat smog that blanketed the country's north for five days this week. "It does present a downside risk to commodity prices in the short run," said Paul Bloxham, chief economist for global commodities, Australia and New Zealand, for HSBC Bank in Sydney.

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