Hoa Phat joined the Viet Nam’s steel sector conference 2017

Viet Nam Steel Association (VSA) on January 25^th organised the conference to review operation of the country’s steel sector in 2017. Mr. Tran Dinh Long – chairman of management board of Hoa Phat Group and Mr. Tran Tuan Duong – general director led the delegation to participate into the event.

At the conference, Mr. Tran Tuan Duong briefly introduced the model of Hoa Phat Group, its business results in 2017 and sharing some information about Hoa Phat Dung Quat Integrated Steel Complex, experience in developing steel production and trading.

Mr. Duong said that Hoa Phat's main business is in the iron and steel sector (accounting for 80-90 per cent of its annual revenue and profit). The group now has 11 member companies and about 15,000 employees nationwide. It is expected that by 2020, Hoa Phat will have a total capacity of over 7 million tonnes of steel including construction steel, welding rod steel, steel pipe, hot rolled steel and galvanized steel.

General director Mr. Tran Tuan Duong introduces their strategic project – Hoa Phat Dung Quat Integrated Steel Complex at the conference

To realize this plan, Hoa Phat has been implementing its Hoa Phat Dung Quat Integrated Steel Complex project in Quang Ngai Province with a capacity of 4.5 million tonnes per annum. Particularly, Hoa Phat could be able to produce hot rolled steel from 2.5-3.5 million tonnes per year depending on the market demand. It is expected that the entire project will be completed in 2020, bringing Hoa Phat into the Top 50 largest steel producers in the world.

Answering question from the representative of Posco Steel in Viet Nam on the advantages of maintaining both blast furnace and arc furnace, Mr. Tran Tuan Duong said that the world is still maintaining two technologies with the ratio of 70 per cent output from blast furnace and 30 per cent from electric furnace. In fact, there are some of the world's leading manufacturers use electric furnaces meaning from scrap steel. "That said, choosing a technology is one issue. It is important that if we have good governance and production operation, we will get high profitability," Mr. Duong said.

In the discussion, VSA's leaders and some representatives of the steel construction industry... emphasized on policy issues relating to steel industry; participating in the development of national technical standards and national standards for steel products; participating in building technical barriers as well as application of trade defense measures to protect domestic production in the context of deep integration to the world's economy.

In addition, with trade defense, the association will continue to monitor the import of steel products that are manufactured domestically and jointly with enterprises to propose to the State management agencies to apply preventive measures. It would also follow foreign lawsuits that enterprises and State management agencies can take active measures to prevent losses.

A report from the association showed that last year, steel output in the country was more than 22 million tonnes, increasing 23.5 per cent from the previous year. Steel sale reached around 19 million tonnes, representing 20.7 per cent year-on-year rise. With 3 million tonnes of steel sales in 2017, Hoa Phat has been the leading firm of construction steel and steel pipe with market share of 24 per cent and 26.4 per cent respectively.

According to VSA, the steel sector would continue to grow at 20-22 per cent in 2018 compared to 2017. Of which, the hot rolled steel would have the highest growth rate of 154 per cent, followed by steel pipes 15 per cent, galvanized steel and coloured coated steel 12 per cent, construction steel 10 per cent and cold rolled steel sheets 5 per cent.

                                                                                        Nghi Tran