According to the Vietnam Steel Association (VSA), Vietnam is the only ASEAN country expected to obtain positive GDP growth in 2020. The government has been trying to accelerate public investment to boost economic development.

Tran Dinh Long, president of Hoa Phat Group

This will bring great opportunities to steel manufacturing companies. VSA estimated that in July alone, 2.1 million tons of steel were produced, an increase of 7.7 percent over the year before and the same as July 2019.

Nearly 1,956 tons of steel of different kinds sold in the month, an increase of 11.25 percent over June and a decrease of 3.6 percent compared with the same period last year. This included 424,700 tons of exports, up by 41.37 percent over the month before and 16.2 percent over the same period last year.

Hoa Phat Group (HPG) of Tran Dinh Long and Hoa Sen Group (HSG) of Le Phuoc Vu both reported good business results, while other small and medium enterprises had gloomy business performance.

The HPG share price soared from VND13,300 per share on March 27 to VND24,350 per share on August 18. This helped Long’s stock asset value increase by hundreds of million of dollars to $1.1 billion, according to Forbes.

In H1, Hoa Phat reported revenue of VND39.7 trillion and post-tax profit of VND5.06 trillion, increasing by 30 percent and 31 percent, respectively, compared with the same period last year.

The HPG share price soared from VND13,300 per share on March 27 to VND24,350 per share on August 18. This helped Long’s stock asset value increase by hundreds of million of dollars to $1.1 billion, according to Forbes.

The 80 percent increase helped Hoa Phat’s capitalization value increase by $1.6-1.7 billion within a short time.

Analysts said some large steel manufacturers still made high profits during the pandemic because the increased public investment steel demand sharply. Also, manufacturers have increased steel and ingot steel exports to China and regional markets.

According to Bao Viet Securities, the VND700 trillion public investment package is hoped to create motivation for construction activities from 2021. Meanwhile, input materials for steel manufacturing, such as coal and flat steel billets, are on the decrease, which will ensure high profits for manufacturers.

Earlier, analysts had predicted that 2020 would be a prosperous year for the steel industry with opportunities from CPTPP and EVFTA.

At the HPG annual shareholders’ meeting, its managers said the consumption of structural steel in the domestic market may decrease, but that ingot steel exports are expected to increase sharply. The exports can bring profit of VND300,000-1 million per ton. 

V. Ha

Vietnamese billionaires pour money into non-core business fields

While billionaires have been expanding their business fields, other businesspeople have scaled down their operations and sold some subsidiaries.

Did billionaire Vuong foresee Vietnam joining Quad Plus?

Covid-19 has forced manufacturers to consider restructuring the value chain, according to Sunny Hoang Hoa from Savills HCM City. Vietnam is expected to benefit from the trend.