September 07, 2008

NDRC backups steel mills combination in Shandong province

It is reported that delegate of Development and Reform Commission of Shandong province lately gave a report to the National Development and Reform Commission about the successful establishment of Shandong Steel Group and opinions about later restructuring work. After that, NDRC noted that the coastal foundation building program in Shandong province should be scheduled on the basis of the provincial overall conditions especially the next combination of Qidao Steel and Rizhao Steel.

On March 26th 2008, Shandong Steel Group was set up by combining subsidiaries such as Jinan Steel, Laiwu Steel, Zhangdian Steel and steelmakers affiliated to the former Shandong Metallurgical Company. Steel mills mentioned above combined to give birth to 23.31 million tonnes of pig iron, 23.82 million tonnes of crude steel and 22.71 million tonnes of steel products in 2007. Based on last year's output level, the nowadays Shandong Steel Group has ranked the second largest steelmaker in China, only after Baosteel. The newly built steel group aims to improve its general competitiveness of the provincial steel production through eliminating the backward capacity and making adjustment to the remaining steel capacity and layout.

Mr Xiong Biling vice department chief of industrial sector of NDRC said the establishment of Shandong Steel Group is a paragon of significant merger of domestic steel mills and steel industry consolidation has jumped into full swing.