US steel producers eye central and eastern European steel

摘要

PITTSBURGH - North American steel producers are looking at investing in the burgeoning steel market of central and eastern Europe - areas many see as poised for growth as part of the continued after-effects of the fall of Communism. As countries such as Hungary, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia and others among the former Soviet states move further away from Communist-era economics and better embrace free-market principles, consumers in those nations are buying more products made with steel. Several US companies have already established a foothold in the market - notably US Steel, which a few years ago took over the assets of the former VSZ AS steel operations in Slovakia and then bought the former Sartid in Serbia. And Commercial Metals Co (CMC), Dallas, which bought a majority stake in Poland's Huta Zawierce SA in 2003, had been doing business behind the Iron Curtain for a number of years before the curtain fell, and is building on the momentum it established with plans to increase its stake in the long products mini-mill.