The Pudong Iron & Steel Factory, run by China's biggest steel giant, the Baosteel Group, is moving to a new site to make way for the 2010 Shanghai World Expo.

More than 10 billion yuan (US$1.2billion), most of it Baosteel's, has been earmarked for the construction and preparing the new site for production, insiders revealed.

The new site will cover a total area of more than 2.82 square kilometers. The current site occupies 2.18 square kilometers of space.

The existing site will be totally stripped by the end of 2006. First-stage construction at the new site is expected to be completed in 2007 and includes "one mill, one revolving furnace, one 100-ton electronic furnace, and two continuous casting machines." Production capacity is estimated to exceed 1.5 million tons of pig iron.

Top-level managers at the Baosteel Group have said they will take this opportunity to upgrade facilities to match world standards, and to make the new plant "more environmentally-friendly" than its predecessor. Baosteel's technological experts said the amount of waste discharged will be greatly reduced.

Xie Qihua, chairwoman of the Baosteel Group, said: "The moving of Pudong Iron & Steel Factory will not only substantially support construction for Shanghai's World Expo 2010, but also enhance the production capacity of the new factory."

(China Daily June 30, 2005)