Mr Kamel Jalal director of investment relations in the Ezzsteel Group said that his company decided not to apply for a new license to produce steel.

He explained that after considering the terms of reference and details for the tender of these licenses. He said “We found it not commensuration with the size of the company and its position in the Egyptian market. The overall size for licenses is 2 million tonnes divided into more than one license hence the volume of production available did not encourage us to seek to obtain any of them.

However, Mr Jalal considered that providing the company access to the tender was necessary since Ezzsteel is the largest producer in the Middle East and its quest to find out any new developments in the steel market is a normal procedure.

The Industrial Development Authority had closed the application for the TORs in the twenty fifth of November for the new licenses to the production of rebar and billet which aim to produce two million tons of rebar and 1 million tonnes of billet announcing that 9 companies only submitted the data necessary for technical merits of and letters of guarantee with the exclusion of Ezz Group ArcelorMittal Steel of India.

Mr Jalal stressed that Ezz have additional capacity licenses obtained in 2008 and have not benefited of it yet. These licenses provide the company with the possibility to maintain the lion's share in the market, saying that Ezzsteel do not need to target new capacities, especially if they are small at this time.

IDA had announced under the TOR to give priority for companies that did not get any licenses before that is to exclude companies that received licenses in 2008. This have nothing to do with our decision that the Ezzsteel will not hesitate to apply to any new licenses announced anytime later on. The final decision was linked to the economic viability and our own considerations.

(Sourced from www.arabsteel)