Steel Asia eyes five new plants with P82-B expansion push
Steel Asia Manufacturing Corp. is planning to put up five more plants in the country in the next four years, effectively doubling its existing facilities with this P82-billion expansion plan.
In a statement on Wednesday, the company said that the goals of the planned expansion are to replace imports, generate new businesses, create local jobs and stoke economic growth throughout the country.
“We are building the mother industry for manufacturing. We are way behind our neighbors but we will catch up,” SteelAsia chair and CEO Benjamin Yao said in a statement.
“And as we do so, our mills and steel products will create new manufacturing industries that will result in more jobs and higher skilled workers, and economic growth, among others,” Yao said.
The planned factories include an P18-billion facility in Lemery, Batangas; a P30-billion one in Candelaria, Quezon; and another P8-billion factory in Davao City.
The other two plants are projected to cost P26 billion, and targeted for completion by 2027 in Concepcion, Tarlac.
Today, SteelAsia has existing plants in Batangas, Bulacan, Davao, and Cebu.
Yao said that multiple factory locations is a deliberate geographic strategy to cut transport costs and sell to customers at the same price across the country.
Back in May, Rafael C. Hidalgo, the company’s senior vice president for business development, told reporters that they also want to expand the range of the steel products they are manufacturing since the Philippines is still highly dependent on importing steel construction materials.
“With these, we will have 70 percent self-sufficiency in steel,” Hidalgo had said, referring to their expansion plan.
In particular, Hidalgo said they want to produce wide flange beams, sheet piles, wire rods, flat bars, channels, T-bars and lattice girders.
Hidalgo added that the expansion will create more livelihoods in the country, estimating that such an expansion would lead to around 15,000 new direct and indirect jobs.
