South Korea’s largest steelmaker Posco has opened a marketing center in China dedicated to providing various solutions for automotive and high-grade steel with hopes to expand sales of the lucrative steel products in the major market.

It is the second overseas marketing center opened by Posco, following its first that opened in Vietnam in February to expand supply of high-grade steel products in the Southeast Asian country.

According to Posco on Thursday, the company held a signboard hanging ceremony of the marketing center at Posco-China office in Shanghai. An unnamed official from Posco said that the company opened the solution marketing center to capitalize growing demand for automotive and high-grade steel in China.

Posco plans to accelerate supply of high-grade products such as those in the World Premium Plus category and provide utilization technique that help improve overall customer value. The company also plans to promote close cooperation with local production, processing, and sales entities.

Demand for automotive steel has surged in line with the progress in localization in auto-making in China. The country is the largest producer and consumer of automobiles.

Annual vehicle production in China is projected to hit 34.5 million units in 2020, becoming a key base for global automobile industry.

Posco has been shifting to higher-grade products, an area China still lags.

The company operates Posco-CSPC, an automotive steel processing center, in Suzhou, China, whose accumulated sales has surpassed the 5 million ton mark in the end of last year. Posco began operations of the auto steel plant in Suzhou in 2004 with an annual production capacity of 205,000 tons and added its 85,000 tons second plant with pressing facility in 2007. In 2012, the company opened its third factory with blanking processing facility in 2012 and added the fourth one in 2016, increasing total annual production capacity to 470,000 tons.

By Moon Ji-woong and Lee Eun-joo

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]