Steel

Abstract

The world’s steel industry is in a process of high-speed change. The regional distribution of production is changing rapidly, with a large shift in world production from the developed to the developing countries. Steel production in the once-mighty USSR has collapsed. Technical progress in steel and new products that can substitute for steel are changing the nature of competition in the industry. In the advanced economies and in many developing countries the industry has been mostly privatized, producing large changes in the way steel firms operate, including massive downsizing in employment. In the advanced economies state support for ‘national champions’ in the steel industry has virtually disappeared. Foreign direct investment is beginning to increase fast in this industry, which once was immune from such internationalization. Cross-border mergers and acquisitions are beginning to take place. A major international shift in the geographical location of both the production and consumption of steel is taking place.

We have made the fight, the enemy is at our mercy, now do not let us be foolish enough to throw away the fruits of victory.

(Andrew Carnegie)

China’s early masterly development of steel-making by advanced methods, so long before the rest of the world, is an achievement of very great interest to the history of technology in general.

(Joseph Needham, 1965)