STEEL OUTPUT RISING FAST IN EUROPE

Grey River Argus, 28 September 1949, Page 5

STEEL OUTPUT RISING FAST IN EUROPE

Money and Tarriff Barriers to Distribution (Rec. 10.15). LONDON, Sept. 27. “The great post-war steel famine is over, and Britain is stepping up her exports of finished steel”, says the “Daily Express’'. “New steelworks, part of n 248 million sterling post-war expansion plan in the steel industry, have pushed output up to where nearly all of the home demands can be met. The output is now running at a record rate of 15,250,000 tons a year. The steel industry has sold 1,200,000 tons of steel so far this year overseas, as against 850,000 tons in the same period last year. This is good news for the Dominions and the colonies, which have been getting only token supplies in the past”. GERMAN PRICES LOWEST The Sheffield correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” says: German firms are undercutting the British steel manufacturers, and are depriving them of big orders for high grade engineers’ tools and for other specialised products. This German under-cutting has also robbed the United States and Canada of some orders. One of Sheffield’s largest steel firms reported today that the German prices are thirty to fifty per cent, below the British prices. These lower prices had resulted in the Sheffield firm iosing large orders for roll work in Italy, in Denmark, and in Belgium. PRODUCTION CHECKED The United Press correspondent at Geneva says: “According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, the steel industry in Europe is receiving fewer orders, and some of its steel furnaces are even being forced to close, although there is still a general steel shortage. It is understood that the furnaces mentioned are ones in Belgium and in Luxembourg”. In a statement to-day, the Executive Secretary of the U.N. Economic Commission, M. Gunnar Myrdal, said that the steel industry and the steel consumers were suffering from the effects of the inconvertibility of currencies and of bi-lateral trade structures.