Expansion activities of steelmaking facilities in China
With the influence of the apparent massive industrial growth in the country, domestic producers are looking to enhance their business activities to meet the rising demand for steel products in China. The industry sources report that major mills such as Posco and Union Steel are aggressively building more steel production facilities in China. Union Steel announced recently that its fully owned subsidiary Uhsi, Chiangsu Province is in preparations to increase its annual production capacity from 500'000 mts to 800'000 mts. The capacity increase process will take start some time this year, aiming to complete in 2005. Such improvement in production will mean 400% expansion, compared to the 20'000 mt levels at the times when the manufacturing facility was first taken over by Union Steel back in 1997. Another report for capacity increase comes from Korean giant steel maker POSCO, bringing an expansion plan into force for its Shunde facility in Guandong Province, initialising production of flat rolled magnetic steel sheets and prepainted steel sheets with an annual production capacity of 150'000 mts. Further developments from POSCO side are at other subsidies one in Dalian, Liaoning Province, looking to complete establishment of more production equipment for colour coated steel plates by March 2003, and one in Zhangjiangang subsidiary aiming to expand stainless steel producing lines by September 2003.