April 12 and 13, Word Steel Association(Worldsteel)Chairman and HBIS Chairman Yu Yong held the online Worldsteel Executive committee Meeting and 2021 Special Board Meeting in Beijing. Yu Yong said as steel becomes more environmentally competitive with unique recyclability and reuse advantages in the future, a more environmentally friendly and sustainable steel industry will be built, and the development of steel in the post-epidemic era will be even better.

SABIC, USS, POSCO, Uur DALBELER, Nippon Steel, Gerdau S.A., Jindal South West Group, JFE, ArcelorMittal, Severstal Steel, Tata Steel, Dexing Group, Nucor Steel and Voestalpine chief officers, 14 executive committee members attended the meeting. HBIS Vice President Li Yiren also attended the meeting.

Yu Yong said in the year of 2020, beating the challenges of pandemic, the world steel industry maintained a strong growth and an excellent performance. In the globe, overall steel industry production declined slightly throughout the year, but there were positive developments in other areas such as safety, particularly through the Worldsteel website and social media, outlets, the world steel industry drew great attention of the public. It shows that steel industry plays an important role in the world economy. Beside, facing the pandemic, Worldsteel adjusted its working mode and implemented more efficient meeting designs to allow more member companies to participate and share valuable information with everyone in a timely manner.

Yu Yong said the steel industry was providing a key and more competitive material to the world and be attracting peopple’s attention. From the environmental perspective, steel materials are not only versatile but also affordable compared to alternatives.More importantly, substitutes of steel products generally emits more CO₂ in their production. Currently, the world steel industry are investing big in new technologies to be more competitive. Worldsteel and IEA have jointly launched a Road map of Steel Technologies and outlined future technologies reducing the impacts to the environment by exploring different implementation paths to build a more environmentally friendly and sustainable steel industry.

Yu Yong said the future recycling technologies including electric arc steel making procedures own great advantages to competing materials. Steel is high recycle rate is the leading one. A special advantage of steel material is could be recycled with a lower CO₂ emissions. The globe is focusing on low carbon emission and carbon neutralization and the recycled steel is the point. In future, steel industry will be a leading industry to support a sustainable development.  

Yu Yong appreciated the support and trusts of Worldsteel member companies and said, with the mass vaccine injection and proper pandemic control measures in place, we would see better development and growth opportunities for each in 2021. Steel industry in a post pandemic era will be even better.   

The meeting review the sustainable development report of the industry and released the winners List of 2020 Sustainable Development Enterprises. The Presentation of Energy Efficiency Upgrade Project, the Project of Industry Trend and the forecast of Supply/Demand of the industry were made to the board.The meeting also announced the 15th simulation steelmaking challenge world final champion list, HBIS Group Shi Xiaowei won the professional group champion.