June 11 (SeeNews) - HBIS Group Serbia Iron & Steel, a unit of China's HBIS, plans to restart on August 16 one of its two blast furnaces at the Smederevo plant that was shut down on July 5 last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, it said on Friday.
"The current market situation has created favourable conditions for the launch of the blast furnace, whose production volume will depend on market demand," HBIS said in an e-mailed statement.
The other blast furnace at Smederevo steel mill has been kept in operation.
The lockdowns and other coronavirus restrictions dampened manufacturing and construction activities, leading to a drop in global steel demand last year.
HBIS took over the management and ownership of Zelezara Smederevo in July 2016, three months after the Serbian government agreed to sell the steel mill to the Chinese group for 46 million euro ($56 million).
($ = 0.82255 euro)
HBIS GROUP Serbia Iron & Steel DOO Beograd is among the biggest companies in SEE. You can download our SEE Top 100 ranking
here or subscribe to our free Top 100 newsletter
here