Steelmaking nations agree that overcapacity is a problem
by Staff -- Purchasing, 11/1/2001 2:00:00 AM
The first round of talks between steelmaking nations aimed at reducing global excess and uneconomic production capacity ended with them agreeing they all are partly responsible for the industry's woes—and that more talks were needed to fix them.
"Governments will come back with an evaluation of overcapacity and their ideas on how to address these problems at a second meeting at the end of the year," according to Herwig Schloegl, deputy secretary general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris, which hosted the two-day meeting.
U.S. trade officials had hoped to convince members at the meeting that it is in the interest of all steel-producing nations to curb global excess capacity. While no decisions were made, "this was a tremendous first step toward accomplishing our goal of restoring competitiveness to the global steel market," says Grant Aldonas, the Commerce undersecretary for international affairs, who headed the U.S. delegation.
Countries participating in the talks were: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, the Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and the U.S.
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