Quang Ngai (VNA) – Hoa Phat Group, the largest steel maker in thecountry, shipped abroad 240,000 tonnes of steel in 2018, up 50.97 percentagainst the previous year, the group said on January 7.

Hoa Phat also reported an 8 percent increase in the year to nearly 2.4 milliontonnes.

Particularly, the group set new records in both domestic sales and export inOctober, with reckoned volume of more than 250,000 tonnes, and 40,000 tonnes,respectively.

Never before had the group received such large orders from its traditionalmarkets (including Japan, the US, Cambodia, and Malaysia) like it did in 2018.Strongest growth was seen in Japan, with the amount of steel orders increasing20 times to over 58,500 tonnes, followed by Cambodia (246 percent) and Malaysia(202 percent).

Cambodia was the biggest customer of Hoa Phat in 2018 with nearly 70,000tonnes, and will continue to be a potential market for Hoa Phat steel as theneighbouring country’s steel industry has not developed yet while demand ishigh for construction of high-rise buildings.

The group also won the anti-dumping case filed by Australian firm One SteelManufacturing Pty Ltd, resulting in no anti-dumping subsidies imposed on HoaPhat steel in the Australian market.

Regarding the US market, despite a 25 percent tariff on most steel importsunder the Trump administration’s Section 232, Hoa Phat managed to sell 35,600tonnes to the market, accounting for 15 percent of the group’s total exports.

Last year, Hoa Phat steel was shipped to 14 countries across the fivecontinents. The group said that diversity in markets helped it not depend on asingle market. In 2019, the corporation will continue prioritising domestic market,and set aside 10 percent of its output for exports, targeting more markets inthe Southeast Asian region.

Also, construction of the Hoa Phat Dung Quat iron and steel production complexwill be accelerated so that it can be completed by the end of the year. Thecomplex sits on a site of nearly 372.7ha, nearly340ha of which will be earmarked for factories and around 27ha is forspecialised ports with a total investment of 60 trillion VND (2.6 billionUSD). 

With a capacity of 4 million tonnes per year, itmostly manufactures construction and rolled steels. In the first stage,the complex will churn out 1 million tonnes of construction steel and 1 milliontonnes of rolled steel. Later, two million tonnes of rolled steel will beproduced during the second stage. 

After being put into operation, it is expectedto make an annual revenue of nearly 2 billion USD, generate jobs for 8,000workers and contribute 4 trillion VND (173.9 million USD) to the State budget ayear.-VNA