Benjamin Yao, the chairman and chief executive of SteelAsia Manufacturing Corp., believes that a strong local steel industry will enable the Philippines to catch up with its industrial neighbors.
“The Philippines is the only Southeast Asian country that does not produce its steel requirements,” Yao says in a recent meeting with business editors in Makati City.
This is expected to be corrected soon as SteelAsia diversifies its production from reinforcing bars or construction steel to steel beams for bridges, sheet piles for ports, heavy angles for transmission towers and wire-rod for machine parts. SteelAsia achieved a milestone in March 2019 when it exported P300 million worth of rebar to Canada.
SteelAsia operates six community mills around the Philippines and is building more to support the large rebar requirements of the construction and real estate industries. Data show that the Philippine steel consumption posted a compound annual growth rate of 11 percent between 2006 and 2018.
Behind the growth of SteelAsia is Yao who believes that steel is the mother of all manufacturing that creates jobs and lifts the whole economy. He says steel has played a crucial role in the industrialization of Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and China.
Speaking at the 1st Philippine Industrial Summit in Mindanao on Nov. 27, 2019, Yao says per capita steel consumption in the Philippines is now near the industrial inflection point of 100 kilograms. “We are at a moment in time where a decision to act or not will mean a big difference for our country,” he says.
SteelAsia, on Sept. 1, 2019, signed a memorandum of understanding with China’s HBIS Group Limited for the first integrated iron and steel facility in Batangas province to elevate the domestic steel industry and reduce dependence on imports.
Yao says the Philippines imports about 800,000 tons of wire-rod per year and doesn’t produce a single ton. “With domestic wire-rod manufacturing, many SMEs can develop using wire-rods as a raw material. Products like nuts and bolts, screws, wire and nails, steel cables, welding rods, machine parts, mesh, everyday items and more can be manufactured in the Philippines,” he says. “Wire-rod is a mother product for many industries that local businessmen or entrepreneurs can benefit from.”
SteelAsia is in the process of establishing three wire-rod mills in Concepcion, Tarlac; Candelaria, Quezon; and Kirahon, Misamis Oriental. “Wire-rod is a mother product for many industries that local businessmen or entrepreneurs can benefit from,” says Yao.
For his unparalleled role in the resurgence of the steel industry, Yao was named recently as the Entrepreneur of the Year Philippines and will represent the country in the Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur of the Year Awards in Monte Carlo, Monaco in June 2020.
Organized globally by Ernst & Young, Yao was presented the EOYP 2019 during the awards banquet at Makati Shangri-La Hotel in Makati City.
Yao believes that a robust steel industry is needed to sustain the country’s economic growth and development.
“Our business has to grow and evolve according to our country’s needs. We want to build something to be enjoyed by generations down the road, and thus, we accept that its success, we will never see in our lifetime,” he says.
Yao also received the award for the Master Entrepreneur category for sound management practices particularly in a company’s vital areas such as human resources, sales, business development, finance and marketing.
As the first finalist belonging to the steel industry to be named the Entrepreneur of the Year, Yao is determined to continue pursuing his mission and vision of building the country by developing the local steel industry.
With Yao putting his vision into action through SteelAsia, as seen with the company’s rapid expansion and plans of putting up an integrated steel mill in Lemery, the country is inching closer to finally having its own steel industry.
SteelAsia is investing more than P100 billion over the next three to five years for expansion. The company recently held its groundbreaking ceremonies for its project sites in Candelaria, Quezon and Lemery, Batangas for what will be the Philippines’ first wire rod manufacturing steel mill and the country’s first steel beams manufacturing plant, respectively.
Such expansion plan is expected to more than double SteelAsia’s employees from the current 3,000 to about 7,000 while creating a domino effect in the support industries to create an additional 21,000 employment, mostly in the countryside.
Yao is the first from the steel industry to be named Entrepreneur of the Year Philippines. Past winners included Jollibee’s Tony Tan Caktiong in 2003 who also won the World Entrepreneur of the Year, National Bookstore’s Socorro Ramos (2004), Cebu Pacific’s Lance Gokongwei (2005), La Frutera’s Senen Bacani (2006), Alaska Milk’s Wilfred Uytengsu Jr. (2007), Planters Development Bank’s Jesus Tambunting (2009), Bounty Fresh Food’s Tennyson Chen (2010), Aboitiz Power’s Erramon Aboitiz (2011), Hybrid Social Solutions’ Jaime Ayala (2012), Bench’s Ben Chan (2013), Xurpas’ Nix Nolledo (2015), and Uratex’s Natividad Cheng (2017).
Tambunting and Cheng were among the judges for this year’s EOYP. The other judges are Finance Undersecretary Antonette Tionko who is co-chair with Tambunting, Philippine Stock Exchange president Ramon Monzon, Management Association of the Philippines president Riza Mantaring and Philippine Business for Social Progress executive director Reynaldo Laguda.