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CO mitigation and the stable supply of raw materials are two major issues for the steel industry. The Japanese steel industry has promoted short term developments and investments to comply with the Japan Iron and Steel Federation's voluntary action plan in parallel with developing plans for drastic CO mitigation programs toward the post Kyoto protocol period. This paper describes short-term measures in the ironmaking field such as natural gas injection technology to the sintering bed and burden distribution control with coke mixed charging. For mid and long term CO mitigation, the joint project, 'Preparatory research work for the blast furnace based innovative ironmaking technologies' was actively promoted by the New Energy and industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) from FY2006 to FY2008. Based on the enhancement of carbon - CO reaction by close positioning of carbon and iron oxide/metallic iron, the production process and reaction mechanism in a blast furnace were studied for two innovative composites with iron oxide, metallic iron and carbon. For development at a pilot plant scale, a new project, 'Development of innovative ironmaking process using low cost iron ore and coal' started in FY2009. Key technologies of the project are the production process and evaluation in a blast furnace of a hybrid composite of metallic iron and carbon, so called 'Ferro-coke'. This paper describes key technologies and recent developments of the project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]