The Philippines’ largest steel producer SteelAsia will resume the construction of two production facilities - for steelmaking and steel section rolling - at its Lemery plant in the province of Batangas, which was suspended in 2020 due to the lockdown, and it expects the country’s first steel beam manufacturing plant in Lemery to start operations in 2023, according to media reports.
The plant will have an annual production capacity of 1.1 million mt of products used in infrastructure and heavy construction, including H-beams, I-beams, sheet piles, heavy angles and channels, while it will create at least 1,500 direct jobs. The plant will reduce the country’s reliance on imports of steel products needed for the government’s ambitious infrastructure program and will recycle scrap which is currently exported.
“When you export and process our resources abroad, it is creating jobs in another country. With this new plant, we will recycle our steel scrap here and generate local jobs,” Benjamin Yao, SteelAsia’s president, said.
The company is also building plants in Compostela in the province of Cebu in Tarlac and in the province of Quezon.