Key to growth toward becoming a 100-year-old company
In 1963, we became the first Japanese steel minimill company to make inroads into overseas markets, providing construction cooperation and technical guidance for a rolling mill in Taiwan. Since then, we have been establishing a track record in overseas countries, by conducting business operations in Thailand, Brazil, Indonesia, the U.S., etc., and providing technologies and technical guidance in more than 20 countries.
We are currently operating in Vietnam and North America (U.S. and Canada) in addition to Japan, and under a trilateral global system, the overseas steel business is one of the important pillars for the growth of our group.While the construction steel market in Japan is expected to shrink over the medium to long term, we will promote the overseas steel business in Vietnam, a growing market, and North America, a mature market.
In 1994, we were quick to make inroads into Vietnam, which has been growing remarkably, and established Vina Kyoei Steel Co., Ltd. (VKS), a joint company, with a local partner company, in the environs of Ho Chi Minh City, located in southeastern Vietnam, as the first Japanese steel producer’s subsidiary in Vietnam. For more than 20 years since starting operations in 1996, the company has earned trust through high quality and attentive services, and established the KYOEI brand. In 2015, the company doubled its production capacity by completing a new plant, and also increased production items, preparing for the future diversification of steel stock needs in Vietnam.
In 2011, we established Kyoei Steel Vietnam Co., Ltd. (KSVC) in Ninh Binh Province in northern Vietnam (operation started in March 2012), and in May 2018, we acquired Vietnam Italy Steel JSC (VIS), a steel producer in Hung Yen Province in northern Vietnam. In collaboration with KSVC, we will enhance our group’s presence in the northern and central Vietnamese markets.Currently in Vietnam, competitiveness is intensifying due to the entry of integrated steel producers, etc.; however, we are striving to improve profitability by strengthening cooperation such as through the rollout of technologies.
We conducted steel business in the 1970s and the 1990s in the U.S. Although we performed well in both periods, we had no choice but to abandon the business due to the deteriorating business situation in Japan. Vinton Steel LLC, which currently operates in Texas, is a business base that we acquired for the third time in the U.S. in December 2016, and is a historic minimill with a history of more than 50 years from the start of operation.
In March 2020, we welcomed a historic steel minimill company located in Alberta Province, Canada to our group as AltaSteel Inc., while seeking to expand our North American business using Vinton Steel as a bridgehead.
Both companies produce rebars as well as ore crushing steel stock, which are indispensable for ore mining, and we will promote cooperation mainly in the technological area.