POSCO Steelworks Keep Running Hard Even During Lunar New Year Holidays

The Pohang Steelworks hot rolling mill is producing golden hot-rolled steel sheets.

[Asia Economy Reporter Hwang Yoon-joo] POSCO's Pohang and Gwangyang steelworks will continue operations during the Lunar New Year holiday period.

POSCO announced on the 24th that about 12,000 employees, including partners, will forgo the Lunar New Year holiday this year to ensure smooth operations at each steelworks.

POSCO explained, "Steel, which is essential not only to our daily lives but also to the entire industry, requires uninterrupted processes from molten iron production to steelmaking, casting, hot rolling, cold rolling, and plating. Not a single process can stop." They added, "We will continue to focus on producing the highest quality steel products without change during the Lunar New Year holiday."

Earlier, POSCO advanced payments totaling 300 billion KRW to its business partners. Payments, which were usually made twice a week to suppliers of equipment materials, raw materials, and construction companies, were made daily from the 17th to the 23rd for five days ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday. Additionally, cooperation fees usually paid at the beginning of each month to partners were also advanced and paid daily during this period.

Meanwhile, besides early payment of business partner funds during the Lunar New Year and Chuseok holidays every year, POSCO has been paying the full amount of delivery payments in cash to small and medium-sized enterprises since 2004 and expanded this to medium-sized enterprises since 2017. Furthermore, since 2017, POSCO has been operating a 50 billion KRW 'Cash Payment Support Fund' that provides interest-free loans from first-tier partners to second-tier partners to support cash payments.