On January 23, Taiwan's top steelmaker China Steel Corp. (CSC) announced its preliminary operational results for 2008.
The company's pre-tax earnings for 2008 reached TWD 30.25 billion ($897 million), after it netted accumulative pre-tax earnings of TWD 48.52 billion ($1.43 billion) for the first three quarters and a pre-tax loss of TWD 18.26 billion ($541 million) for the fourth quarter of 2008. The sales volume for the fourth quarter of 2008 came to 1.99 million mt, down 540,000 mt from the previous quarter. Meanwhile, sales revenues for Q4 2008 stood at TWD 55.1 billion ($1.63 million), a drop of TWD 21.7 billion ($627 million) from Q3 2008.
Commenting on the results, the company stated, "On the back of lower revenues as iron ore and coking coal prices were still at an historical high, CSC suffered a loss in Q4 2008 and encountered a huge decline in earnings for the full year of 2008."