Vietnamese Steelmaker Announces Plans for Mammoth US$10.6B Works
08/30/2016 - Vietnam’s Hoa Sen Group plans to build a giant US$10.6 billion steel works whose targeted capacity would exceed the country’s total production in 2015, reports the online VN Express News.
According to the news site, the mill, when fully built out by 2031, would be capable of making 16 million tons annually. Vietnam’s total steel output was around 15 million tons in 2015, the newspaper said.
The steel works would consist of 10 blast furnaces, three of four of which would be built as part of an initial phase of construction, according to the Tuoi Tre newspaper.
In a separate interview with the newspaper, a former investment official with the Vietnamese government questioned the investment, saying the country has ample supplies of steel imported from the U.S. and China.
Nguyen Mai, who served as deputy chairman of the State Committee for Cooperation and Investment, the precursor to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, said the country should consider putting support behind other investments, such as advanced alloys.
“I do not think Vietnam should continue investing in steel in the way many other countries did one or two centuries ago,” he told the newspaper. “In developed countries, a ton of alloy is as valuable as ten tons of steel.”
