On December 24, South Korean steel giant POSCO announced that it has lately broken ground for the construction of its second stainless steel processing facility in Vietnam, POSCO- Vietnam Hochiminh Processing Center (POSCO-VHPC), located in Vung Tau, Dong Nai Province, which will have an annual capacity of 50,000 metric tons. Its first stainless steel processing facility in the country, which has an annual capacity of 100,000 metric tons, was built in March last year in an industrial complex located near Ho Chi Minh City.
Scheduled to be completed in June 2010, the second processing facility will include coil-cutting equipment such as slitting and shearing lines.
The steelmaker expects the newest facility to help meet the expected growth of production and sales through the foundation of POSCO-VST (POSCO Vietnam Stainless Steel), and expects it to become an advanced base to expand stainless steel coil sales to other Southeast Asian countries.
POSCO is currently gearing up for moves aimed at the establishment of global units and the expansion of its market in Southeast Asia. It took over the Asia Stainless Corp., a Vietnamese cold rolled steelmaker, in July of this year, and it completed the region`s largest cold rolling steel plant in the Phu My Industrial Complex in October.