February 2, 1984

By the end of the decade, the United States steel industry will be far smaller and more concentrated, with more efficient plants more widely dispersed throughout the country producing specialized products better keyed to the individual needs of its customers. This was the picture that emerged yesterday from interviews with a variety of economists and industry analysts. They described an industry finally shaken from its historic torpor, closing inefficient plants and embarking on a wave of consolidation that it is hoped will cut its labor costs and make it more closely competitive with its international rivals. Only last September, the Republic Steel Corporation, the nation's fourth- largest steel producer, announced that it would merge with the Jones & Laughlin Steel Corporation, a subsidiary of the LTV Corporation and the nation's third-largest producer. Last December, the United States Steel Corporation, the nation's largest steel producer, announced the closing of three of its major plants and parts of more than a dozen others, eliminating 15,430 jobs.

Orders for manufactured goods from factories rose 1 percent in December and a strong 10.6 percent for 1983, the biggest jump in four years, the Commerce Department said today. The department also revised its report of last week on orders for durable goods - products expected to last three years or more. This sector gained two-tenths of 1 percent in December, revised from the earlier figure that showed a 1.1 percent decline.

The Business and the Law column on Jan. 24 incorrectly identified the Federal agency that approved an exchange of assets between Warner Communications and Chris-Craft Industries. It was the Federal Trade Commission.

The Nissan Motor Company, the maker of Datsun cars and trucks, agreed today to begin assembling cars here in 1986 in what would be the first such entry by a Japanese auto maker into the European Common Market. But the accord, which calls for Nissan to invest about $70 million in a kit- assembly plant capable of turning out some 24,000 cars a year, falls far short of earlier proposals. Nissan, which began talking with the British Government some three years ago, had at first envisioned setting up a full-scale manufacturing plant in Britain to produce 200,000 cars a year.

The veil of mystery that surrounds the Federal Reserve's monetary policy may become a little harder to see through under a new accounting procedure that begins today. The change, which affects the way banks account for their reserves, is intended to give the Fed tighter control over the growth of M-1, the closely watched measure of money available for spending. Actual results may be different, however, since Fed officials have been saying since October 1982 that they are setting monetary policy less according to changes in M-1 and more according to what happens with inflation and the economy as a whole. In the credit markets, analysts are grinding their teeth because the change could make short-term rates more volatile and make it harder to predict money supply changes and to interpret Federal Reserve policy.