Steelmakng Conference in Shenyang

I have just returned from Shenyang in Northern China where I was an invited speaker at the 4th Australia-China-Japan Iron and Steelmaking Conference.

 

Shenyang is a city in transition. Everywhere you look, construction and business of every kind is thriving. The air is thick with the sounds of welding, cutting machines, trucks and workman yelling. The roads are jammed full of cars, trucks, buses, motorbikes and road bikes. There are also strange odours in the breeze and a small park near my hotel looked somewhat unloved surrounded by cranes and temporary housing for the many construction workers. One morning I walked through an area close to the Hun river where makeshift warehouses had been sat up in the car parks of building and even on the footpaths. Literally thousands of boxes of various retail goods were moving in and out by a combination of trucks and homemade trailers hitched onto bikes. Another street I came along was full of large shops selling every conceivable type of electronic goods.

 

In the midst of this industrial revolution, people were working hard (I was told that 6 day working weeks were the norm), in conditions that many workers in the west would find unacceptable. It was an extraordinary sight.

 

 

                                         View from the Centre of Shenyang                                         

 

The conference was held at the Northeastern University, which is one of China's leading technical Universities. My hosts were friendly and enthusiastic about Australia (our wines in particular). At the conference, the technical level of the papers varied greatly but it was obvious that great efforts were being made in China to increase the scientific knowledge of this crucial industry, in line with the huge importance of the steel industry to China. My own paper on modelling of Oxygen Steelmaking was well received and I was greatly flattered to meet Chinese researchers very familiar with my work.

 

 

                        Presentation at 4th Australia-China-Japan Iron and Steemaking Symposium

 

If there is a downturn in the Chinese economy, there is no evidence of this trend in Shenyang !