Taipei, March 10, 2010 (CENS)--Thanks to rising steel prices, China Steel Corporation (CSC), Taiwan`s largest integrated producer of steel products, will likely challenge US$937.5 million in pretax earnings, or US$0.071 per share, in the first half of this year.

CSC posted US$479.53 million in February sales, US$116.93 million in pretax earnings, or US$0.008 in EPS, up 210.59% year-on-year.

The company scored US$247.62 million in pretax earnings and US$0.018 per share in the first two months of this year, meeting the market expectations.

An institutional investor believes CSC will see substantial growth in sales and earnings in March as downstream firms are expected to deliver orders in the wake of CSC`s move to raise wholesale prices on steel products to be shipped in April and May.

With low-priced raw materials in inventory, CSC is expected to see earnings grow each month beginning from March as it won`t use high-priced raw materials until July. Accordingly, the expected price increase of raw materials will not affect CSC earnings the first half of this year.

In other front, CSC`s affiliate--Chung Hung Steel Corp. said it registered US$93.59 million in February sales, down 18.46% from the preceding month and down 16.77% year-on-year. The company registered NT$6.667 billion (US$208.34 million) in cumulative sales in the first two months of this year, up 15.54% from a year earlier.

(by Ben Shen)