Steel deal

and ANSC Angang New Steel Company are to build a second hot-dip coating line on the site of their joint venture Tagal in

, northern

.

At a cost of $150 million, the new high-tech line "Tagal II", owned equally by the joint venture partners, is scheduled to go into trial operation in early 2008.

A total of 240 people will be employed there. Like its twin Tagal I, which was commissioned in December 2003, the Tagal II hot-dip coating line will be designed to produce around 400,000 metric tons of hot-dip coated steel sheet for automotive and appliance industries.

ThyssenKrupp Steel CEO Dr. Karl-Ulrich Köhler said: "With the realisation of Tagal II we are expanding our strategic cooperation with our Chinese partner ANSC with a view to exploiting the market opportunities available in China together: By 2010 we expect demand to grow by 5.1 percent for automotive grades and 4.1 percent for grades for the appliance industry."

Separately, ThyssenKrupp Technologies is selling the Noske-Kaeser Group to Titan 1 Limited and Hunter Capital Group, two New Zealand investment companies.

Noske-Kaeser has companies in Hamburg, New Zealand, and Argentina that equip merchant and naval vessels with air-conditioning, refrigeration and ventilation devices, plants, and systems as well as fire-fighting and NBC protection systems.

Noske-Kaeser, which has 340 employees, generated sales of €53 million in fiscal 2004/05.