US Steel's plans for Serbian steel mill Sartid

US Steel’s plans for Serbian steel mill Sartid

US Steel (USS) declared its plans over Sartid, the Serbian unit, in line with the requirements of the acquisition of the unit in September 2003. Sartid is required to reach its full annual capacity of about 2.2 million tons till 2007. In order to reach this output level a second blast furnace, which has been idle for a couple of years, has to be recommenced. However, restarting of the furnace is not among this year's plans. Currently the mill is operating with an annual capacity of almost 800'000 tons. Meanwhile, raw material production of the mill is expected to rise by 40% to 1.1 million tons in 2004. USS will allocate around $30 million, out of $150 million to be spent over the next five years, for the reconditioning of Sartid this year. As being the sole steel mill in Serbia, revival of Sartid is planned to help country's economy to enhance. However, this will be a bit challenging due to Serbia's current situation as adverse effects of 10 years of civil war are still being felt. On the other hand, several reforms such as reducing tariffs and export/import quotas, stabilizing exchange rates, reorganizing banking industry and privatizing businesses in order to boost investments of foreign investors are in progress.