Kobe Steel to Seek Another Growth for Each Unit

Kobe Steel’s president Hiroshi Sato said to Japanese reporters at party on Monday the firm tries to seek the group’s global growth under Kobelco vision “G” announced in April. He said the firm tries to improve the averaged revenue by increasing the high valued products’ sales mainly for original only one products. He said the firm tries to improve the cost competitiveness by strengthening the manufacturing ability while the firm tries to seek volume growth by capturing offshore market.

Mr. Sato said the iron & steel unit studies expansion of Chinese wire processing capacity while the welding unit started 10th offshore plant in Qingdao. He said the aluminium & copper unit plans to build forging parts plant for automotive suspension in China as US plant while the group company of Shinsho Corporation expands the aluminium coil center capacity in China.

Mr. Sato said the machinery unit invests at plants in China and USA while Kobelco Cranes builds the first plant in India. He said Kobelco Eco-Solutions got second order for Vietnamese water treatment plant while Kobelco Construction Machinery expands the capacity in growing Chinese market.

Mr. Sato said the new iron making process, ITmk3 proves the commercial operation at the first commercial plant in USA when the plant reaches the full capacity operation as early as by end of 2010. He said the firm starts the plant marketing after the firm gets potential customers’ confidence to the process.