Friday 19 Apr 2024
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This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on July 18, 2018

KUALA LUMPUR: Hiap Teck Venture Bhd said yesterday its blast furnace at Eastern Steel Sdn Bhd has resumed production, after a halt of nearly three years.

In a statement, the steel maker said the reigniting of Eastern Steel's blast furnace was done on Monday, marking a successful resumption of its operations.

Eastern Steel is principally involved in the manufacturing, selling and dealing of a range of steel products using the blast furnace plant, with a current production capacity of 700,000 tonnes of steel slabs per year. Its products are targeted to be sold locally to satisfy domestic demand and also exported to neighbouring countries, principally Indonesia and Thailand, which are net importers of steel slabs, said the group.

Operations at Eastern Steel had been halted since October 2015 to minimise losses due to difficult market conditions then.

Yesterday, the board said it is confident that the resumption of its operations will contribute positively to the future performance of the Hiap Teck group. Hiap Teck executive director Foo Kok Siew said in December that the group was expecting to return to the black in its current financial year ending July 31, 2018, after being in a loss-making position for three years.

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