POSCO, Tangsteel form LED joint venture

China's Tangshan Iron and Steel Group (Tangsteel) formed a joint venture on Thursday with POSCO, the largest steel producer in the Republic of Korea, to tap the LED lighting market.

The Tangsteel-POSCO LED Co., Ltd, based in Tangshan City of north China's Hebei Province, will manufacture energy-efficient and long-lasting LED lighting products with a total investment of 61.26 million yuan (10 million U.S. dollars).

The joint venture has an annual designed production capacity of 379,000 units of LED lighting products and an expected annual sales revenue of 207 million yuan.

Tangsteel, an affiliated company of China's largest crude steel producer, Hebei Iron and Steel Group, has been seeking to make an industrial transition, as serious overcapacity has troubled the steel industry for years.

POSCO is a multinational steelmaking company. It is also a giant in information technology, automation and electronics. It was ranked 146th on the 2012 Fortune Global 500.