Vina Kyoei Steel Company Limited (Vietnam)

Established in 1994, VKS is a joint venture between Japanese and Vietnamese investors, specializing in producing and trading kinds of construction steel. VKS's steel factory located at Phu My I Industrial Park, is one of the largest scale factories in the region with an area of more than 17 hectares producing types of steel including deformed steel bar, thread deformed bars and coupler type, plain round bars, wire rods, and equal angle bar. The global steel industry faced many challenges in 2022, including pandemics, economic downturns and geopolitical conflicts. In Vietnam, severe inflation, falling steel demand and unfavorable real estate policy caused difficulties for the domestic steel industry.In the first 6 months of 2023, Vietnam's finished steel production reached more than 13 million tons, down by 21% compared to the same period in 2022. On the other hand, the amount of finished steel sales also decreased significantly. Consumption of finished steel products reached about 12.5 million tons, down by 17% over the same period in 2022. Although finished steel sales decreased, steel exports still saw growth. Finished steel exports in the first 6 months of 2023 reached 3.881 million tons, up by 6.5% over the same period last year. The reason why steel production and consumption are gloomy is due to low steel market demand. Domestic steel demand in the first 6 months of 2023 decreased due to the freezing domestic real estate market. Tightened real estate credit policies, difficult corporate bond markets, high interest rates, inflation, etc. caused many difficulties for the real estate market. In the export market, although export output increased, export prices decreased, causing the export value of finished steel products to decrease generally. This may negatively affect the business results of companies in the steel industry in general and the subject in particular.