On January 14, Guangdong Shaogang Songshan, a subsidiary of China Baowu Steel Group, signed an agreement with Japan JFE Steel Company to jointly establish Baowu JFE Special Steel Co., Ltd. The company will be engaged in the production and sales of high-grade special steel bar steel, actively explore the global special steel market, serve the high-quality development of China and the world's equipment manufacturing industry, and help realize the development of the joint construction and sharing of special steel industry.
Baowu JFE Special Steel Co., Ltd. is expected to be established as soon as the end of March. The joint venture company will receive JFE technical support in production and quality control to meet local, mainly Japanese automotive companies' demand for high-grade special steel bars.
In addition, seeing the market potential of China's electric vehicles, JFE's chemical company JFE Chemical has established a joint venture with Baowu Carbon Material Technology to jointly produce battery materials. JFE Chemical will invest approximately 7.3 billion yen through the new company to build a plant in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. It plans to start production in the second half of 2020 and produce 10,000 tons of “anode material” for the core components of batteries every year.