Strike ends at ArcelorMittal Algeria plant - union

ALGIERS (Reuters) - A nine-day strike at ArcelorMittal's steel complex in Algeria has ended after the company agreed to worker demands that it keep a coking plant open, a union leader said on Thursday.

"We have decided to stop our strike after Arcelor agreed to renovate the coking plant as soon as possible," local union leader Smain Kouadria told Reuters. "This is a victory for us and we will come back to work tomorrow."

A spokesman for ArcelorMittal, the world's largest steelmaker, said he had received confirmation that work was resuming at the plant.

The complex, near the town of Annaba, produced about 750,000 tonnes of flat and long steel products in 2009, the company said, most of it destined for Algeria's domestic market but with some also exported to the Mediterranean region.

ArcelorMittal had said there was a question mark over whether it was economical to renovate the coking plant at Annaba, which has been closed since October last year over safety concerns.

Workers went out on strike because they said permanent closure of the coking plant would lead to several hundred job losses.

Union representative Kouadria said on Thursday the Algerian government will provide assistance with investment in modernising the plant up to 2014, though he did not specify what form that help would take.

(Reporting by Lamine Chikhi and Christian Lowe; Writing by Christian Lowe, editing by Nigel Hunt)