BEIJING, Jan. 8 (Xinhua) -- The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) announced Monday a new policy to ensure zero growth of steel capacity in 2018.

The new policy forbids plants from increasing capacity.

In environmentally sensitive areas of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, steel plants should remove at least 1.25 tonnes of outdated capacity for every 1 tonne of new capacity.

Steel profits improved amid capacity cuts in 2017.

"In the January-November period last year, combined net profits in the ferrous metal smelting and rolling sector rose 180 percent year on year to about 314 billion yuan (about 48 billion U.S. dollars)," said a MIIT statement.

The steel sector must focus on quality and profits while cutting overcapacity, it said.