The administration said it will supervise resumption of energy production as part of the effort to control and prevent further spread of the new strain of the coronavirus.
"Factors including weak demand, lower prices of industrial products and rising costs led to the fall in profits," said NBS senior statistician Zhu Hong.
The HBIS Group, or Hebei Iron and Steel, paid about 200 million yuan ($29 million) to Vale, the largest producer and exporter of iron in the world, earlier this week.
HBIS released ferrosilicon 72# tender price of February as 6900 yuan per ton, an increase of 750 yuan per ton on January, and the tender volume was 1050 tons, down by 863 tons vs. the last month.