On May 15 the chief executives of ThyssenKrupp Stahl, Duisburg, Dr. Karl-Ulrich Köhler, and ANSC Angang New Steel Co., Anshan, Academician Liu Jie, laid the foundation stone for a hot dip galvanizing line in the Chinese port of Dalian. The US$180 million high-tech facility "Tagal", co-owned by the two joint venture partners, is expected to start trial operation in summer 2003. Five ThyssenKrupp Stahl employees will manage the facility, which will employ approximately 190 Chinese workers.

"Like its twin - hot dip galvanizing line No. 8 in Dortmund which we put into operation last year - Tagal is designed to produce around 400,000 tons per year of hot dip galvanized sheet meeting very high surface requirements", explains ThyssenKrupp Stahl Executive Board Chairman Dr. Karl-Ulrich Köhler. "The Dalian line will supply hot dip galvanized sheet mainly for the Chinese auto industry. China is a prospering market; vehicle production there is expected to rise from 1.8 million units per year today to 2.4 million units in the year 2005."

The new line will be the first of its kind in northern China. Key factors in favor of Dalian - a 5.5 million inhabitant seaport situated 450 kilometers north-east of Peking and approximately 300 kilometers south of Anshan - were its favorable site conditions, infrastructure and logistics: The approximately 130,000 square meter site is ideally located only two kilometers from the container port.

The building complex, with 30,000 square meters of floor space and a length of 433 meters, will also have a striking outward appearance: ThyssenKrupp Stahl commissioned industrial designer Friedrich Ernst von Garnier to design the color scheme for the facility. "We want to use corporate colors not only to enhance the public`s perception of the facility; we also believe that the colors - light green and gray-blue - will directly impact employee motivation and product quality", says Köhler explaining the company`s color philosophy.

Contact:

Dietmar Stamm
ThyssenKrupp Stahl AG
Phone: +49 203 / 52 - 2 62 67
Fax: +49 203 / 52 - 2 57 07
e-mail: stamm@tks.thyssenkrupp.com

Erwin Schneider
ThyssenKrupp Steel AG
Phone: +49 203 / 52 - 2 56 90
Fax: +49 2 03 / 52 - 2 63 69
e-mail: schneider@tkst.thyssenkrupp.com