HO CHI MINH CITY (Commodity Online): Steelmaker POSCO has opened a cold rolling steel mill in Vietnam, completing a steel production and sale belt linking Korea and major southeast Asian countries.

POSCO said in a press note that the opening of the plant in the Phy My industrial zone near Ho Chi Minh City was attended by 700 industry and government officials including POSCO CEO Chung Joon-yang and Vietnamese Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang.

The 26-month construction of the plant with an annual production capacity of 1.2 million tonnes cost a total of $528 million. It is the largest-ever foreign investment in Vietnam. It will produce 700,000 tonnes of cold rolled steel used in automobiles and motorcycles and 500,000 tonnes of steel for construction per year.

Hot-rolled steel plates, the raw material to make cold rolled products, will be shipped from POSCO plants in Pohang and Gwangyang in Korea. The products will be processed in Vietnamese, Thai and Malaysian factories before being sold across Southeast Asia.
POSCO said the Vietnamese plant will serve as a production base to meet growing high-end demand in Southeast Asia.