OREANDA-NEWS. November 20, 2014. General Steel Holdings, Inc. ("General Steel" or the "Company") (NYSE: GSI), a leading non-state-controlled steel producer in China, today announced its financial results for the third quarter ended September 30, 2014. The Company will file its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2014 with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission following market close.

Henry Yu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of General Steel commented, "We continued to witness improving demand for our products in Western China, as our sale volume grew more than 15% year-over-year to 1.45 million metric tons, the highest ever quarterly volume for General Steel. This quarter, a number of smaller and unqualified steel mills were forced to exit the market, in light of which, we strategically offered attractive discounts in neighboring markets to expand our geographic footprint."

Mr. Yu continued, "We anticipate the price of iron ore will continue on its downward trend, and with our better market position, improved industry fundamentals, and higher production efficiency, we are solidly positioned to earn greater profits in 2015. We expect to harvest the fruits of our continuous cost cutting measures and equipment upgrades and optimization over the past couple of years, and we look forward to a broadening geographic footprint, improving efficiency, expanding operating leverage, and ultimately rising profitability," Mr. Yu concluded.
John Chen, Chief Financial Officer of General Steel, commented, "As we strategically discounted our products in order to establish a foothold into neighboring markets, our average selling price declined by 20.7% year-over-year in the third quarter. However, as the cost of iron ore decreased by 25.3% year-over-year, we were able to achieve leverage from the increased sales volume and expanded our quarterly gross margin by 40 basis points and gross profits by 16.8% year-over-year."

Mr. Chen then stated, "This December, we will complete an upgrade to an existing 450 cubic-meter blast furnace with a much larger and more efficient 1,800 cubic-meter blast furnace. This new equipment and expanded volume will enable a higher utilization of raw materials, better conversion rate, and lower energy consumption during iron smelting, and ultimately generating further savings in our unit production cost. As we complete our investment and upgrade plans in 2014, we enter 2015 with genuine optimism."