Arcelor Mittal, the world's largest steel maker, has been asked by Chinese authorities to raise its bidding price for a stake in China's Laiwu Steel Corp, a company source said Tuesday."(Authorities) want the price to be reviewed," a source with the Luxembourg-based company told AFP on condition of anonymity.Arcelor signed a deal to buy a 38.4 percent stake in Laiwu Steel, a listed unit of the Laigang Group based in the eastern province of Shandong, for two billion yuan (258 million dollars) in February 2006, ahead of its own merger with Mittal.Previous reports said the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China's top planning agency, had turned down the deal because it thought the price was too low and was worried about technology transfer.However, the Arcelor Mittal company source said the NDRC was just asking for clarifications from the provincial authorities, which were by no means a rejection."It is not a refusal (but) a normal examination of the deal. Things are making normal progress," the source said. "We are still in the run in spite of the speculation."The source acknowledged the clarifications concerned technology transfer."The signed agreement had a strong part about transfer -- with a planned research center -- otherwise the Chinese group would not have signed."Laiwu Steel said no decision had yet been made yet on the deal."We submitted the application (for the deal) in April last year and we are still waiting for a result," said an executive at the Chinese company, who declined to be named.The NDRC was not immediately available for comment Tuesday.
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