The Steel Sector in the Global Economy

The steel industry used to be a national-level and nationalised industry, and today has become privatised and globalised. Thirty years ago, Europe was the world’s largest steel producer, with 23 per cent of total world production; today China has the largest steel production capacities, with total Asian crude steel production share at more than 50 per cent of global production (World Steel Committee on Economic Studies, 1981, 2011). In 2011, the most important crude steel producers in the world were ArcelorMittal, followed by Baosteel, POSCO, Nippon Steel, Jiangsu Shagung and Tata Steel. All these steel corporations are located in Asia, except ArcelorMittal, which was a merger between the Indian Lakshmi Mittal and the French Arcelor. This represents a dramatic shift compared to the turn of the century, when in 2000 there were at least four European corporations among the largest steel producers (Arcelor, Corus, ThyssenKrupp and Riva). Total production has also exploded, from 80 million tonnes in 2000 to 120 million tonnes in 2010. While the steel industry used to consist of many state-owned companies that answered local and national needs, today there are only a few multinationals, dominating the market. The last 15 years have seen a tremendous dynamic of fusion and mergers of companies. Observers are undecided if the mergers have already led to a global market of steel or just an international integration with regional concentration (Fairbrother, Stroud and Coffey, 2004, p. 53).