European stainless steel giants plague foreign markets

Outokumpu, one of Europe's largest stainless steel producers and one of the world’s four largest stainless steel producers, announced the opening of a processing and distribution center in Kunshan, Jiangsu Province to complement the rising demand for stainless steel in the Chinese market.

The distribution center covers an area of ​​42,000 square meters, with an investment of 20 million euros, mainly to provide special stainless steel materials for the Chinese market, especially dual-phase stainless steel, to meet the stringent requirements of energy, chemicals, transportation and pulp industry. 30,000 tons of stainless steel can be processed each year. Juha Rantanen, CEO of the company, said: "This is the first investment in the company's industrial projects in China. Based on the company's operations, it will consider further investment."

According to Gerhard Pariser, commodity analyst at HeinzH.Pariser Alloy Metals and Steel Market Research, “The Chinese market has performed well this year. It is expected that China’s stainless steel production this year will reach 10.7 million tons, an increase of nearly 10% year-on-year, while Europe and Japan are hard Close to the output in 2008. It is expected that the operating rate of steel mills in Europe will be only 70% to 83% of the annual design capacity of 10 million tons. In the future, China will become the leader in the stainless steel market.”