Steelmaker invests in pig farm

Updated: 2012-03-07 19:33

By Cheng Anqi (chinadaily.com.cn)

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China's steelmakers, battling to stop their profit margins from narrowing further, are diversifying into unrelated sectors, including wine production, vegetable planting, and even raising pigs.

Deng Qilin, a deputy at the National People's Congress and general manager of Wuhan Iron and Steel (Group) Corp, a leading Chinese steelmaker, revealed that the company's latest goal is to build a farm that can hold 10,000 pigs.

The project is one of the company's investment programs at more than 39 billion yuan ($6.2 billion). It will also build vegetable bases to tap the food market and is ready to enter the logistics business by providing services to urban residents.

While steel production in China has increased over recent years, steelmakers' profits have slumped to less than 3 percent, far below the 6 percent registered by the industrial sector.

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