BEIJING — Improved product quality and structure brought China's steel export price to $798.8 per metric ton in October, the highest level since February 2014, according to the China Iron and Steel Association (CISA).

In the first 10 months of this year, the average export price of steel products was $700.8 per ton, $211 or 43.1 percent higher than the same period last year.

Despite a 30.4-percent year-on-year drop in steel exports to 64.49 million tons in the ten-month period, revenues from the exports only shrank 0.3 percent to nearly $45.2 billion.

This reflected improvement in both the structure and quality of steel exports, said Gu Jianguo, deputy head of CISA.

Most of China's steel enterprises performed better thanks to the country's continued capacity-cutting efforts, which are a key part of the ongoing supply-side structural reform.

During January-October, CISA members said their return on sales reached 4.41 percent, up from 2.77 percent in the first quarter of this year.

China has completed its task of slashing steel production capacity by around 50 million tons this year by phasing out substandard steel bars and zombie companies, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.