Participants' Report on the Sino-Japan Workshop on Advanced Steels for Automobiles

The Sino-Japan workshop, the first co-operative activity based on MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) which was signed with CISRI in May this year, was held on September 20 in Shanghai, China under the joint sponsorship of CISRI and NIMS with support from The Chinese Society for Automobile Materials and The Chinese Society for Specialty Steels. The following day, we received the opportunity to tour Bao Steel. Approximately 60 people who were closely related to automobile materials participated in the workshop and actively exchanged opinions on manufacturing methods, characteristics, and application methods for automobile materials.

Although we were familiar with China's industrial development, we were able to observe the actual situation with our own eyes during our visit. It strengthened our belief on further developments in China. The third tallest skyscraper in the world, which is also the tallest in Asia, was built in Shanghai as if to symbolize the developments that are taking place, and it has become a major tourist site. In infrastructure, a magnificent highway that runs in all directions throughout the city gave us a lasting impression.　We also felt that Shanghai has become a major city in the world exceeding both Tokyo and New York.

We were able to see the IF steel manufacturing line on the Bao Steel tour. We were struck by the newness of the lines that were just installed and the spaciousness inside the factory. However, according to the Chinese engineers, they still have many technological problems and cannot attain the level of Japanese technology. Educating engineers is particularly a problem there. However, we were able to observe the sudden increase in their production ability before our eyes and could actually feel them approaching Japan.

(Toshihiro Hanamura, Metallurgical Processing Group,  Hiroshi Honda, Welding Metallurgy Group)

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