NSSC, Thainox to Launch Joint Sales Force in Thailand

Nippon Steel & Sumikin Stainless Steel (NSSC) announced on Monday the firm agreed with Thai cold rolled stainless maker, Thainox Stainless Public to establish joint sales force in mid-August. NSSC tries to supply stainless steel products for users including automakers in demand growing Thailand and countries of Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The firm will supply automotive grade hot rolled stainless coil for the first time. The firm keeps discussing with Thainox for licensing of NSSC brand, technical partnership and hot coil supply contract. They agreed for the joint venture when the major users of Japanese automakers expand the operations in Southeast Asia. NSSC has considered expansion of local supply ability to ship more chrome series stainless products for the area. They establish the joint venture with 10 million bahts of capital. NSSC and Thainox have each 49% of the venture with 2% share by Nippon Steel Trading’s Thai subsidiary, Siam Lotus. NSSC sends the president from Japan. The joint venture will sell cold rolled stainless products for automobile and motorcycle. The firm sources the stainless products from Thainox, which rolls hot band from NSSC. The joint venture will deal USH409L grade products for exhaust pipe of automobile and motorcycle and might sell SUS429 and SUS436L grades for automotive exhaust pipe. Thainox, in which NSSC has 1.12% share, has 200,000 tonnes of annual output capacity and will expand the capacity to 300,000 tonnes by the end of 2007. Arcelor sold the interest in Thainox in March 2004. NSSC tries to expand the export for Thailand through the new scheme while the firm has shipped monthly 1,000 tonnes of cold rolled stainless for Thailand.