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Cockerill-Sambre was a group of Belgian steel manufacturers headquartered in Seraing, on the river Meuse, and in Charleroi, on the river Sambre. The Cockerill-Sambre group was formed in 1981 by the merger of two Belgian steel groups – SA Cockerill-Ougrée based at Seraing in the province of Liège, and Hainaut-Sambre based at Charleroi in the province of Hainaut – both being the result of post-World War II consolidations of the Belgian steel industry.
The company inherited a steel industry with significant debts and production overcapacity based on blast furnace production rather than electric furnace recycling, with numerous factory sites in constrained city locations, and adversely affected by competition in the export market from new steel-producing countries (such as South Korea and Brasil). The need to streamline was complicated by regional dependence on employment in the steel industry.
It was merged into Usinor in 1999, and after 2002 was part of the Arcelor group. As of 2010, the bulk of the group is part of the ArcelorMittal multinational steel group, where it is known as ArcelorMittal Liège.
Belgium is a country in northwest Europe. Founding member of the European Union, it covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres and has a population of about 10.7 million. From the end of the Middle Ages until the 17th century, it was a prosperous centre of commerce and culture. Upon its independence, Belgium eagerly participated in the Industrial Revolution and, at the end of the nineteenth century, possessed several colonies in Africa. Today, Belgium's strongly globalized economy and its transportation infrastructure are integrated with the rest of Europe. Its location at the heart of a highly industrialized region helps made it 2007 the world's 15th largest trading nation. Cultural life is nowadays concentrated within each language community and a variety of barriers have made a shared cultural sphere less pronounced. Anyway, the region corresponding to today's Belgium has seen the flourishing of major artistic movements that have had tremendous influence on European art and culture. Text extracted from wikipedia.
