Steelmaker Hoa Phat Group will start selling containers in the final quarter of this year.

It said its container manufacturing plant in the Phu My II Industrial Park in Ba Ria – Vung Tau Province, was topped out in February.

It has a capacity of 500,000 TEUs of containers a year using Hoa Phat’s own steel.

“Shipping containers are a part of Hoa Phat’s ecosystem”, Nguyen Manh Tuan, vice chairman of the company, toldVnExpress.

Vu Duc Sinh, head of Hoa Phat’s container manufacturing unit, said the first batch of machinery and equipment for the factory are expected to arrive this month, and construction would be completely finished in April.

Hoa Phat began building the plant amid a worldwide shortage of shipping containers as empty containers were stranded at ports due to Covid-19 even as demand for exports recovered.

The company wanted to build the factory as soon as possible to take advantage of the shortage, Sinh said.

In Vietnam, Hoa Phat is the first container producer. Tuan explained that the price of weather-resistant hot-rolled coil steel used for making containers is high, and would cause losses for companies if they have to import it.

“Hoa Phat can produce this type of steel,” he said.

Source:VnExpress