Vietnam’s Hoa Phat group plans to invest VND85 trillion ($3.7bn) in a new blast furnace at the central Quang Ngai province, set to be launched in early 2022. The new blast furnace will add another 5.6mn mt to the company’s annual production capacity. The total capacity includes 4.6mn mt of hot-rolled coil and 1mn mt of steel bars and wire rods. The new blast furnace is expected to expand the manufacturer’s annual crude steel production capacity by 70pc to around 14mn mt by 2024.
A robust demand for steel in the country has led to the company investing in the furnace, according to chairman Tran Dinh Long
The investment is a part of Vietnam’s efforts to boost domestic production of key raw materials amid the COVID-19 pandemic and rising tensions with China regarding the country’s tendency possibility to be overdependent on Chinese shipments.