Angang New Steel, the publicly traded arm of China's second-largest steelmaker, said third-quarter net profit rose more than fourfold from a year earlier, boosted by an asset injection from its parent firm. Net profit for the three months to September increased to 2.11 billion yuan from 491.2 million yuan under mainland accounting standards, the company said in a statement filed with the Shenzhen Stock Exchange yesterday. Turnover surged to 14.5 billion yuan from 6.92 billion yuan. The Liaoning-based steelmaker, which said yesterday it has changed its name to Angang Steel from Angang New Steel, will more than double production this year after buying production facilities from its parent firm in January for 19.7 billion yuan to streamline business and expand the product mix. Angang produced 10.28 million tonnes of steel products in the first nine months of this year, 129 per cent more than a year ago. They included 3.97 million tonnes of hot-rolled sheet, 1.67 million tonnes of cold-rolled sheet and other products. The firm gave no details on the prices received for its products. According to the China Iron & Steel Association, the price of cold-rolled sheet, one of Angang's key products, jumped 17.2 per cent between January and the end of September, although it slipped 8.05 per cent from June levels. China's steel product output rose 24 per cent to 339 million tonnes for the first nine months of the year, the association said. For the first three quarters, Angang's net profit tripled to 5.15 billion yuan from 1.71 billion yuan a year earlier. Turnover jumped 87 per cent to 39.5 billion yuan from 21.1 billion yuan. Angang forecast that profit for the full year will rise as much as 220 per cent to between 6.03 billion yuan and 6.65 billion yuan.
