On July 23, Chinese steel producer Bayi Iron & Steel Co. Ltd., a Xinjiang-based subsidiary of Chinese steel giant Baosteel Group, held a groundbreaking ceremony for a new production base in Baicheng County in the Aksu Prefecture in the southern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.
The project, to be built with an investment of RMB 8.11 billion ($1.2 billion), is one of the key projects in the region. It is expected that the new steel production facility will produce 2 million mt per year of mainly flat steel products by 2012, thus growing into the biggest steel production base in the northwestern region of China.