Chinatown in Westphalia

It is a strange place for circus acrobats: A huge steel-works, set in a desolate landscape north of Dortmund. High up on the steel-work’s chimney, these acrobats dangle perilously from its greying walls.

These acrobats are not here for the danger, or the glamour. They are Chinese workers, dismantling a colossal steel factory, which is to be transported and set up again in China.

Indeed, this dusty spot in an area which once boasted what was thought to be one of the strongest industries in the world, has seen a reawakening with its Chinese visitors.

Chinese signs have replaced German ones, Chinese music sounds from televisions around the site, and the smell of food cooking in several huge black woks has replaced those more familiar aromas in the former factory canteen.

1000 workers, in blue and red overalls from the Chinese steel company Shagang started taking the steelworks apart in April.

Within two or three years the steelworks should be up and running in the Chinese district of Zhangjiagang, more than 9000 kilometres (5600 miles) away.

Screw by screw

The move is one of the most tedious and challenging yet. Each tiny screw has to be marked and carefully packed for its long trip on board a ship to China. It is thought to take two years until the last, final piece has been sent on its way to Zhangjiagang.

A daunting task, but one which is well worth its trouble, says Wang Wie Dung from the Chinese Shagang group: "We want to produce a further annual three million tonnes with the German machines", he says – just less than double the amount it produces today.

A quick solution

The steelworks, which belonged to the German company ThyssenKrupp, cost the Chinese around 10 million euro ($ 9.1 million). Wang Wie Dung hopes it will serve the Chinese company Shagang, which already employs around 7000 people, for at least 20 years.

According to Peter Scholz from the transport firm Kühne and Nagel, responsible for the transport, the Chinese would have to wait at least three years for a new factory to be made in Europe, and another one or two years for it to be up and running in China.

By buying a used one, they can start producing steel just two years after the first screw is dismantled.

The end of an era

The selling of Dortmund's steelworks marks the end of an era in an industry which is dying throughout Europe.

In the 1950s and 60s, both coal and steel industries in Europe grew remarkably, exporting all over the world. But advances in communications and transport soon made their mark, with fierce competition coming from other, developing new producers further afield.

As governments heavily subsidised a trailing industry, they soon came to realise that any hopes were fruitless as production thrived at far lower costs in areas such as the Far East.

But as plants in western Europe were huge, and served for the livelihoods of millions of people, reluctance to close them was strong.

In the 1990s, a huge competitive group of five European producers slowly emerged, including the German company ThyssenKrupp.

All five pushed through with cost cutting measures, but this did not rule out closures, and as a result mass job losses.

Losing and winning

40,000 people once worked in Dortmund's steel industry. In 2001, the last of 16 steelworks in Germany's Ruhr region shut its doors.

Now the remnants of one of these colossal steel ovens, that in Dortmund, is due to be up and running in China by 2004.