SOUTH EAST AISA STEEL INDUSTRY - STRATEGIC ISSUES TO BE ADDRESSED

摘要

In the recent Bangkok Steel Conference, the ASEAN Iron and Steel Industry Federation (AISIF) President Mr Wellington Y Tong presented a comprehensive paper on the region's latest steel industry update. The paper discusses the current status and dynamics of the region's steel industry. More importantly, it identified some critical issues to be dealt by the region's steel industry. This article summarises the paper and highlights its most interesting parts. South East Asia steel consumption has been growing continuously after the 1997 crisis. However, its steel producers are lagging behind in terms of capacities and productivity. ASEAN is the second largest net import region with 15.3 million tons of steel net imported in 2004 (USA is no. 1 with 25.7 millions). The region's net import of steel products has increased substantially, mostly by increasing imports of Thailand and Vietnam. In the period of 1999-2005, Thailand and Vietnam had been growing at an annual rate of 32 percent and 21 percent respectively. However, there are only two countries in ASEAN have ironmaking facilities, Indonesia and Malaysia. Krakatau Steel of Indonesia has 2.3 mtpy capacity and Malaysia has Perwaja with 1.2 mtpy and Amsteel with 0.75 mtpy. All of the ironmaking facilities are using gas-based direct reduction technology. The ironmaking facilities supplied only 18 percent of iron unit for crude steel production in the region.