MAN from Thailand last year emerged as the potential saviour of steelmaking in Teesside.

Win Viriyaprapaikit is president of Sahaviriya Steel Industries (SSI), the company proposing to buy Corus Teesside Cast Products (TCP) in Redcar, east Cleveland.

In February, the 40-year-old, who heads the Thai steel firm founded by his father and aunt 55 years ago, had read the news on the internet that a community in the North of England had taken to the streets to try to save their factory.

Those images left a deep impression on Mr Viriyaprapaikit.

He said the marches demonstrated how much pride the people of Teesside took in their steel industry, which was under threat after an international consortium pulled out of a tenyear deal to buy its steel.

SSI has been locked in talks with Corus for more than a year, and after several site visits, meetings with union leaders and local delegates, the gloom which pervaded at the start of last year is beginning to lift.

SSI is a family company and, as the biggest steelmaker in Thailand, it buys about four million tonnes of steel a year and could become a significant client of the Redcar plant.

If a deal can be agreed, Mr Viriyaprapaikit has confirmed that the 700 steelworkers who remained at the facility after its partial mothballing would be kept on, and he hopes the new owners will draw on the skilled workforce on Teesside.

Mr Viriyaprapaikit said: “After these marches got our interest, they did not really have to explain to me how they feel because the actions speak louder than words, and throughout the year I was seeing these marches.

“I was quietly reading this at home but, with a lot of interest at the time, I never thought we could be part of this.”

TCP multi-union chairman Geoff Waterfield said the area had been through a “terrible, dark time” but the determination of the local community looked to have brought the Teesside steel industry back from the brink.

He said: “I am partly still in shock and getting fleeting moments of absolute euphoria.

“We have been up and down so many times and it is starting to sink in.