GERMAN STEEL FIRM WANTS FOREIGN CAPITAL

Chronicle (Levin), 15 November 1949, Page 5

GERMAN STEEL FIRM WANTS FOREIGN CAPITAL

Beeeived Mondav, 7 pnn. .. BONN, Nov. 14. The West German Governlnent is awaiting an Allied deciSion on a proposal that a large sum of foreign Capital should be invested in the Vereinigte •Stahlwerke, the biggest steel iirm in the Ruhr, says Reuter 's Bonn correspondent. A Government spokesman confirmed that Dr. Konrad Adenauer, Pederal Chancellor, sent to the Big Three Foreign Ministers at their Paris confere'nfee last wdek, a sdcret memorandnm proposing that thfee-quarters of the 300.000,000 marks (about £25,000,000) new capital desired by the steel works, should Come from foreign investors. The Foreign Ministers are not expeeted to make an iminediate decision as legal and economic obstacles still hinder .foreign investment in Germany. The question also atises as to whether Capital is to be' invfested in combines like Vereinigte Stahlwerke due for liqliidation tihdcr the Anglo-American decartelisation law. France was ndver a party to this law and therefore is not committed to it. Irop'ortant American interests have also always been opposed to it. The United Press Frankfurt correspondent says Western Germahv C0"Sld produce steel at nearly the wartime rate | if she got a chance. despite all the distiiaiitling that has been done since 1946. The Allies razed 534 German plants ahd 20 more are in process of dismantling but Germany 's capacity for raw steel production is somewhere hear 18,000,000 tonS; This is far above Germany's legal capacitv limit of 13,600,000 tdnS and Stirprising close to t^e slightly more than 20,000,000 tons potential tkat Western Germany had in 1945. The anti-disrtiantling campaign is Sponsored prirharily by the gigantic Vereinigte Stahlwerke and has fired its heaviest barrages in the "'irection of the British. The tenor of the campaign is that the British fear German eompe tition and are eager to destrov if through dismantling. As dismantling stands now, the floal list of removed plants will tot.al 754. The origitial Allied list drawn up in 1946 totalled 1977.