Hanoi (VNA) – Hoa Phat Group, the largest steel maker in thecountry, said it provided more than 2.77 million tonnes of high-qualityconstruction steel to the market in 2019, a year-on-year surge of 16.8 percent.

Of the total amount, over 265,000 tonnes of steel were shipped to Australia,Cambodia, Japan, Malaysia, China’s Taiwan, the Republic of Korea, and the US.

In December alone, sales of construction steel reached 285,000 tonnes, up 33.7percent from the same time in 2018. Particularly, steel sales in the southernregion were estimated at 70,000 tonnes, tripling the amount recorded inDecember of 2018.

However, highest sales volume in the south was recorded in November with morethan 80,000 tonnes.

According to Do Minh Quy, Director of Hoa Phat Construction Steel’s HCM Citybranch, southern localities consumed around 500,000 tonnes of steel in 2019,doubling the amount in the previous year.

As the group targets to produce 3.5-3.6 million tonnes of construction steel,with 1 million tonnes manufactured in the south in 2020, it is improvinglogistics services and developing marketing programmes to make Hoa Phat brandmore popular in the Southeast and Mekong Delta regions.

At present, the group put into operation the first phase of the Hoa Phat DungQuat iron and steel production complex, and construction of the second phase isunderway.

It is also working to complete the construction of Hoa Phat Dung Quat port, whichis capable of handling cargo ships of 200,000 DWT. The port is seen as the mostimportant facility of the complex as it helps facilitate import and exportactivities./