Chung Joon-yang, chief of the nation’s top steelmaker POSCO, has been elected the new chairman of the World Steel Association.

The WSA held its annual general meeting Sunday in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and elected Chung as the 37th chairman to lead the organization for the next year, officials said Tuesday.

The POSCO chairman will be the third Korean to chair the WSA, following Kim Mahn-je in 1996 and Lee Ku-tack in 2007.

Korea is now the fourth country to turn out at least three WSA chairmen.

The others are Japan, the United States, and Germany.

As of last year, Korea was the world’s sixth-largest steel producing country, with a yearly output of 70 million tons and a per capita consumption of 1,062 kilograms, according to the WSA data.

“Chung’s election is expected to reinforce the position of POSCO within the world steel industry,” said a company official.

“It will also add momentum to the Global POSCO Strategy, a long-term plan to boost the company’s leverage in the world market.”

Chung has been acting as a member of the WSA executive committee since 2009 and was selected as one of the two vice chairmen last year.

Established in 1967, the WSA is the most influential steel-related organization in the world, aiming to promote the cooperation of steelmakers and to maximize profit.

It incorporates some 170 member companies, as well as steel associations and institutes, and is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.

By Bae Hyun-jung (tellme@heraldcorp.com)