The Anshan Iron and Steel Company, China's oldest state-owned steel corporation, is now one of the country's leading steel exporter, selling 670,000 tons of products overseas in 1999.

Local official sources say that the company, in north east China's Liaoning Province, an old heavy-industry base of China, took in 130 million US dollars from the exports, second only to the Baoshan Iron and Steel Company in Shanghai.

Officials with the company said that the Chinese government's control over steel production and the low prices of these products last year, forced the company to aim at the international market, where their quality steel earned a solid reputation.

During the second half of last year, Anshan's averaged monthly exports exceeded 100,000 tons of steel products, three or four times as many as in the same period of 1998.