OREANDA-NEWS. April 16, 2012. With the release of Baosteel 2011 annual reports, investors pay great attention to how Baosteel seeks breakthrough and development in "meagre profit" steel era. Baosteel Co.,Ltd. general manager Ma Guoqiang has online exchanges with investors and answers questions which they are concerned with. Baosteel will take new round development planning as an opportunity, focus on company value increase, create complete industrial chain and achieve the transition from manufacturing to service, reported the press-centre of Baosteel. 

Last year, due to many factors at home and abroad, steel industry profit margins were further squeezed and domestic steel industry entered the era of meager profit.In this backdrop, Baosteel achieved 222.857 billion yuan of operating income, with 10.10% increase compared with same period last year; The net profit was 7.362 billion yuan, with 42.79% decrease and earnings per share were 0.42 yuan.

Investors express concern about the fact that Baosteel increased in production while its profits did not increase last year. In answer to these problems, Ma Guoqiang says that despite the fact that Baosteel Co.,Ltd. achieves good performance within the industry, the overall margin still falls, which is the realistic reflection of high cost and severely squeezed profits in China's steel industry.In the capital market, investors are most concerned with stock price and they hope that the company's managers can make efforts to bring stock back to a reasonable price.Ma Guoqiang says that since last year, Baosteel Co.,Ltd. has taken various measures to boost the stock price. For instance, the company managers increases stock holding, the largest shareholder Baosteel Group announces that it increases no more than 2% of stock holdings. Recently it also sells out two businesses with relatively low profitability.He believes that the current share price slump is the result of downturn in market investment atmosphere and the grim industry competition situation. He still believes in the company's intrinsic value and that the correction of value shall be achieved through dual efforts of the company and the market.

Baosteel Co.,Ltd. 's efforts have been recognized by the majority of investors. They believe in the intrinsic value of Baosteel Co.,Ltd., and recommends that the company buy back stocks with the money gained from the sales of stainless steel and special steel business and strive to become a model of capital market value investment.In this regard, Ma Guoqiang says that stock repurchase is internationally acknowledged method of using funds and is one of the company's options. However the company should consider the different aspirations of the shareholders. There still exists the link of repurchase approval and re-issuance approval in China. Such is a very significant thing for the company and it needs to be carefully studied and needs the consent of the shareholders of the company.The sales income of two businesses is mainly used to optimize the structure of corporate debt, and modestly reduce the level of indebtedness of the company's assets.With the Group's completion in stainless steel and special steel assets reorganization, Baosteel will focus on the development of carbon steel plate and is committed to becoming the most competitive steel plate base.

Investors are quite concerned with the current steel market situation and its future development. In answering relevant questions, Ma Guoqiang says that with the relaxation of monetary policy and liquidity improvement,it is expected that steel demand in the second half of the year will be better than the first half. However, due to the low concentration of iron and steel industry, the production adjustment is slow. The raw material price fluctuates with steel price and the steel industry will continue to face a long period of difficult business situation before the reversal of the ore supply and demand relationship.Ma Guoqiang says that this year is crucial in Baosteel's re-formulation of 2013-2018 new round six-year planning. Baosteel will do research by focusing on all aspects of company value increase. Building a complete industrial chain is the company's first choice and it proposes the transition from manufacturing to service in the new round of planning.

Faced with the domestic steel industry status( high-yield, high-cost and low efficiency) and the unavoidable brutal competitive environment, Baosteel will strengthen their confidence, deals with risks and makes progress and improves the ability to respond so as to seek a breakthrough with practical action in the era of meager profit and strive to continue to maintain the optimal operations results among domestic counterparts. On the side of concrete work, Baosteel will further refine and implement potential-tapping and efficiency improvement initiatives, optimize resource allocation, improve variety profitability; strengthen the investment in new production line and control its deadline and further increase each unit's ability in loss reduction and profit increase.