August 22 (SeeNews) - China's Hesteel has boosted the output of its steel mill Zelezara Smederevo in Serbia to 700,000 tonnes in the first half of 2017 from 410,000 tonnes in the like period of last year, Serbian president Aleksandar Vucic said.
The Chinese company is also increasing the workforce of Zelezara Smederevo, which currently has 5,500 employees, Vucic said in a video file posted on the website of Serbian news agency Tanjug on Monday.
Hesteel said in June it generated record-high revenue of $77 million (65.4 million euro) from the sales of steel products made in Serbia in May. The company sold a total of 120,000 tonnes of steel products manufactured at Zelezara Smederevo, the highest monthly sales volume since it set foot in Serbia a year ago.
In February, Hesteel said it planned to invest $120 million in improving the functionality of Zelezara Smederevo's equipment and optimising its costs in 2017. Hesteel added it would aim to diversify the output of Zelezara Smederevo in response to customer demand, focusing on manufacturing quality products with added value, such as sheet metal and cold-rolled steel.
Hesteel officially took over the management and ownership of Zelezara Smederevo in July 2016. In April 2016, Serbia's government agreed to sell the steel mill to Hesteel, after the Chinese investor submitted a binding offer to buy all 98 property units of Zelezara Smederevo for a total of 46 million euro.
($ = 0.849677 euro)