Nippon Steel & Sumikin Stainless Steel Corp. (NSSC) and Nisshin Steel Corp. have been considering forming an alliance and a newly formed holding company, which would account for a 50% share of the Japan domestic stainless steel market. Although everything had not been confirmed, it was certain that the two companies were negotiating on how to cooperate closely. NSSC shipments were 1,010,000tns and annual sales reached USD 4.19 billion till March 2009, while the Nisshin Steel Co.’s production is 600,000tns. NSSC would be given the opportunity to enter the overseas markets after they were united. At present, all output of NSSC supplies the domestic market. Nisshin steel company had several production bases overseas including Baoxin stainless steel company, whose annual production capacity was 600,000tns; Thainox stainless steel company in Thailand, whose annual production capacity reached 160,000tns; and US-based Nisshin-Wheeler stainless mill and Spain-based Acerinox stainless company which were built in Malaysia with 1 million tons of production capacity.
