After a year of imaginative management, HBIS Group of China has succeeded in turning around the troubled Smederevo steel mill, Serbia's largest, reinforcing the view that the conglomerate's go-global strategy is yielding positive results.

Hebei-based HBIS, one of China's largest iron and steel manufacturers, bought an ailing, loss-making Smederevo for 46 million euros ($51.5 million) in April last year and started to manage it in July.