SteelAsia Manufacturing Corp. began exporting reinforcing bars to Canada, making the Philippines a steel exporter again after several decades.
SteelAsia senior vice president and head of sales Yvette Sy said the company shipped 10,000 metric tons of rebars to Canada worth over P300 million.
Rebars are used by the construction sector to provide tensile strength for infrastructure, buildings, housing and other structures.
“We are excited to see Philippine-made rebars being used in buildings and infrastructure in Canada. This shows that our steel products are competitive and world-class, having passed the stringent standards on steel set by Canadian authorities,” Sy said.
SteelAsia is the first steel bar manufacturer in the Philippines to have an Integrated Management System certification when its Environment (ISO 14001) and Health and Safety (OHSAS 18001) Management Systems were integrated with its Quality Management System (ISO 9001).
SteelAsia’s Quality Management System was also certified to conform to UK Cares or the UK Certification Authority for Reinforcing Steel Bars, the only Philippine company to achieve such certification at this time.
“We hope to do our part in raising the reputation of Philippine manufacturing by ensuring that our steel products are at par with the best in the world,” Sy said.
She assured that SteelAsia would continue to ably support domestic requirements, especially the ongoing massive infrastructure developments in the country.
SteelAsia is the Philippines’ flagship steel firm with six rebar rolling mills across the country—three in Luzon, one in the Visayas and two in Mindanao. Together, these facilities produce a total output of more than two million tons per year.
“We are proud to contribute to the country’s development, not only through the manufacture of quality steel locally but also by earning precious foreign exchange for the country through exports,” Sy said.
The company said that in the next two to three years, it was aiming to produce about 3 to 4 million metric tons of billets to support the doubling of capacity of rebar, section and wire rods production.
The company invested P100 billion to quadruple its capacity by 2023 with the establishment of about 30 new mills in its existing plants and another five new sites which would be dispersed across the country to reach 70 percent self-sufficiency in steel by 2023.
The investment will cover more upstream facilities with the establishment of new integrated steelmaking plants using recycling technologies and expansion of its midstream and downstream products to include H beams, sheet piles, wire rods, steel plates and reinforcing steel mesh.
