Yuzuru Abe; Led Japanese Investments in U.S. Steel

Yuzuru Abe, 73, the Nisshin Steel Co. chairman who led Japanese steelmakers in investing in the United States. Abe joined Nihon Seitetsu, then Japan’s leading steelmaker, in 1938 after graduating from Tokyo University. In 1970, he became an executive director of Nippon Steel Corp., which became the nation’s largest steelmaker when it was formed in a merger between Yahata Seitetsu and Fuji Seitetsu. Abe became an executive vice president of Nippon Steel in 1977. He moved to Nisshin Steel in 1980 as president and had been chairman of the company since 1985. Under Abe’s leadership, Nisshin joined with Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corp., the eighth-largest U.S. steelmaker, to produce and sell aluminum and galvanized steel sheets in the United States. The Japanese government decorated Abe with the Order of the Rising Sun for his contribution to the development of the nation’s steel industry. In Tokyo on Jan. 14 of liver disease.