Steel goes ‘off the net’ in China

- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -

Steelonthenet.com, the international iron and steel industry news and information portal, regrets to announce that access to its website appears to have been blocked in China. Repeated reports from webmasters and site visitors attempting to access the site from servers in Shanghai and Beijing in recent weeks indicate a persistent denial of access that has not been evident elsewhere in the world. These access problems seem to have commenced around April 2005.

Commenting on these restrictions, CEO Andrew M Kotas said “Control of the internet in China is a phenomenon that has been widely reported on in the last few years. Most recent assessments however have suggested a censorship trend towards more targeted internet filtering, focused in the main on silencing Taiwanese independence movements, pro-democracy or anti-communist groups, human rights activists or other political opponents.”

Adds Kotas “Steelonthenet.com is a knowledge-sharing information portal that generates revenue from industry research and consultancy support. The business has no political agenda. Indeed, its success is predicated on its commercial focus and on the website’s supply of timely and objective news, reports and statistics from a broad range of distinct and independent information sources.”

Concludes Kotas “If communication is the lifeblood of business then commercial news censorship must be the first step to industrial decline. We therefore hope that the prohibition of www.steelonthenet.com we are witnessing today is not an early signal of broader censorship by the Chinese authorities but instead, simply a temporary consequence of mistaken or perhaps just overzealous blocking.”


- PRESS RELEASE ENDS -

For further information, contact: public.relations@steelonthenet.com
Press enquiries: +44 (0) 775-149-0885

Dr Andrew M Kotas
Steelonthenet.com
http://www.steelonthenet.com



NOTES FOR EDITORS

About Steelonthenet.com
Steelonthenet.com is a global steel industry news, statistics and information portal that also provides clients with iron and steel sector research, management consulting and other professional services. The site was launched in October 2001, and is owned by UK-based Metals Consulting International Limited.