June 6 (SeeNews) - China's Hesteel said on Tuesday it generated record-high sales of $77 million (68.4 million euro) from steel products made in Serbia in May.
The company sold a total of 120,000 tonnes of steel products made at its steel mill in Smederevo, the highest monthly sales volume since it set foot in Serbia a year ago, Hesteel's Serbian unit, HBIS Group Serbia Iron & Steel, said in a statement.
The rise in sales was chiefly due to the strategy of HBIS to improve the quality of its products at a time when the market is characterised by low prices, the company said.
Another positive factor was the good work organisation following the acquisition of the Zelezara Smederevo steel mill last year, Hesteel noted.
The Chinese group said it expects further records to be broken at the Smederevo factory this year as a result of the more than $150 million of investments that Hesteel plans to make in Serbia in 2017.
Hesteel officially took over the management and ownership of Zelezara Smederevo in July 2016. In April 2016, Serbia's government agreed to sell the steel mill to Hesteel, after the Chinese investor submitted a binding offer to buy all 98 property units of Zelezara Smederevo for a total of 46 million euro.
($ = 0.8888 euro)