GERMAN STEEL SUBSIDIES CANNOT CONTINUE - MINISTER Economics Minister Martin Bangemann said the state could not continue to pour money into West Germany's ailing steel and coal industries because the subsidies endangered other parts of the economy. "The situation is completely absurd from an economic point of view," Bangemann told the newspaper Die Welt in an interview released ahead of publication tomorrow. "We are subsidising the production of mineral coal and steel to an enormous extent and at the same time putting a huge burden on all other branches of industry and making them uncompetitive," he said. Bangemann said the steel and coal industries were no longer capable of being competitive. Continued state subsidies would not save them but would only prolong their lives artifically for a few years, he said. "That is why I have refused to continue subsidising them in the way that we have done in the past," he said. Several steel firms have announced plans to reduce their workforces, citing weak prices and lower exports due to the strength of the mark and tough foreign competition. Bangemann said everything possible would be done to find new jobs for the workers affected by the cuts.