September 08, 2008

BSRM to invest BDT 500 crore in new steel plant

The daily Star reported that Bangladesh Steel Re Rolling Mills is planning to invest BDT 500 crore in building a new steel mill and a billet factory in Chittagong during the next five years in an effort to double its share of the rebar market in Bangladesh.

Mr Aameir Alihussain director of Bangladesh Steel Re Rolling Mills said that that the two new factories will be a BDT 260 crore billet factory with a capacity of 0.6 million tonnes of billets and a rolling mill for rebar production costing around BDT 260 crore.

Mr Alihussain said that “At present Bangladesh Steel Re Rolling Mills holds around 12% of the market for quality rod. Until this year the rod market had been growing at 8% to 12% a year, although demand has been dampened somewhat in the last 12 months due to weakness in the construction sector and a sharp increase in rod prices.

He added that "Now the trend is that people construct high rise buildings in Dhaka and Chittagong which is not possible without using quality rod. As the building of high rise buildings will rise in coming years we want to meet the demand with our product.”