The joint venture will be focused around three steelmaking hubs at Port Talbot, above, in south Wales, Ijmuiden in the Netherlands and Duisburg in Germany AlamyTata Steel and the German firm Thyssenkrupp have taken the first step towards creating the second largest steel group in Europe, which could lead to the loss of about 4,000 jobs. The companies have signed a memorandum of understanding to combine their European steel activities in a 50-50 joint venture called Thyssenkrupp Tata Steel. The joint venture has a workforce of about 48,000 at 34 locations but the partners expect that 2,000 jobs in administration and up to 2,000 jobs in production will have to go. “Those impacts shall be jointly shared between both partners,” the companies said. The European steel industry has been battling to cope with lower prices as a result of a flood of cheap imported steel, mainly from China, and the…

Source: The Times September 20, 2017 07:52 UTC