With an investment of US$65 million, Monterrey, Mexico-based pipe producer Forza Steel began operations at a new plant that has expanded to double the company’s installed capacity. Forza’s CEO, Eduardo Villarreal Leal, attributed the expansion as a way to “declare war on unfair import profiles and steel pipe from China and Korea.”
Leal said there is a serious problem of unfair imports of pipe in Mexico, so the company expanded its product range with a cost reduction will compete on price and import substitution. “We've just slowed imports with distributors and may have growth especially in import substitution but we still have a serious problem of pipe that reaches Mexico with prices below cost and poor quality especially coming from China.”