Nippon Steel and Honda to Establish New Coil Center in China

Steel Center, Japanese coil center mainly controlled by Nippon Steel and Honda Motors, will establish a branch site in Wuhan, Hubei, China to process and supply steel sheet for Honda’s factory in China. The new coil center becomes Steel Center’s third offshore base following Guangzhou Pearl Steel Center (GPSC) in Guangzhou, China and Steel Case Manufacturing (Thailand), (SCMT). The new coil center is now under construction and will start operation in April 2007. Steel Center will have share of over 50% in the new coil center with other shareholders, Honda Motors, Honda Trading, Nippon Steel, JFE Steel and POSCO. The new coil center will introduce a leveler, a slitter and a tailored welded blank machine. Honda Motors produces CR-V and CIVIC at Dongfeng Honda Automobile (Wuhan) (DHAW) and expanded its production capacity to 4 times or 120,000 sets per year in 2006. GPSC has supplied processed steel sheet to DHAW so far. However, GPSC’s operation became to near full capacity after Honda Automobile (China), the main customer of GPSC, increased its sales by 13% to 260,000 sets in 2006 from 2005. Consequently Steel Center decided to build up the supply system in Wuhan and to establish a new coil center.