South Korea's Posco, the world's fourth biggest steelmaker, would be keen on a sizeable merger with a suitable US or European company if the right opportunity presented itself, according to the company's chief executive.

"It [a merger] would depend on the right situation. I support the idea of a more globalised steel industry and Posco cannot be said to be globalised while we have no more than 5 per cent of our steel being consumed outside Asia," Lee Ku-taek told the Financial Times in an interview at the International Iron and Steel Institute's meeting in Berlin.