Baosteel Group has further strengthened its leading position in high-tech cord steel products in the Chinese market by establishing a long-term co-operation with Dutch Bekaert Group, the world's leading advanced metal transformation and coating company.

Xie Qihua, chairman of Baosteel Group, revealed that the group will strive to list itself among the top three steel manufacturers in the world by the end of 2010 with the strategy of internationalization.

"Our co-operation with Bekaert, the world's largest steel wire rod manufacturer, is certainly a major part of the strategy to push Baosteel into the world market,'' said Xie Qihua, while receiving the Vincent Gaeremynck Award (VGA) from the top management of Bekaert.

Yu Daquan, director of marketing department of Baoshan Iron & Steel Co Ltd, believes receiving the VGA has a significant impact on Baosteel's plan to enter the world market.

He said: "The VGA symbolizes high quality standards in the international market, especially the European market, thus the award helps us build a brand name for Baosteel.''

Since October 2000, Baoshan Iron & Steel Co Ltd, the core enterprise of Baosteel Group, started to supply Bekaert China with steel wire rods.

Zhang Chi, the senior engineer of Baoshan Iron & Steel Co Ltd, pointed out that steel wire rods are one of the most complicated categories among cord steel products, requiring highly advanced production technology.

Therefore, being the supplier of Bekaert, the international leader in wire rod technologies, substantially helped Baosteel Group forge itself as the production centre for the premium products such as wire rod and other categories of cord steel products in China and even globally.

Julien Dewilde, CEO of Bekaert Group, said: "Baosteel Group shows great capacity of research & development in such a short time span and the quality of its wire rod supply is very high, thus we grant the biennial VGA to the company.''

Yang Kaiyu, co-ordinator of Bekaert China, said competition for the award is in fact very fierce, Baosteel beat more than 40 wire rod suppliers from all over the world who supply more than 2.3 million tons of raw material.

Yang added: "At present, Baosteel has already become the largest supplier for Bekaert in the Chinese market.''

According to the latest statistics, Baosteel Group has already supplied Bekaert with more than 20,000 tons of steel wire rod.

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