"This year, export of cold-rolled steel, stainless steel, steel barsand zinc-coated steel sheets all increased significantly in comparisonwith last year," Cuong said.
On special thing, Cuong informed the country imported more than 285,000 tonnes of pig iron this year.
"This is strange as Vietnam has never before exported steel ingot -in previous years. The country has needed to import pig iron to servedomestic production," said Cuong.
Giving reasons for the increase in steel exports, Cuong said trade promotion schemes had shown a positive effect.
"These programmes have helped companies find partners in foreign countries," Cuong said.
Cuong said many foreign-backed steel companies and steel-ingotmanufactures based in Vietnam had begun operation and exportingtheir products to their own countries and throughout the world.
"One important factor is that the steel supply in the domestic marketis now exceeding demand so companies need to export," he said.
According to Cuong, exports had helped lower the trade deficit relatedto steel production, as local steel consumption had dropped due tostalled investment projects.
Cuong said that theassociation planned to work closely with businesses to expand marketsand maintain a positive export turnover.
He said goodquality, competitively-priced steel tubes, cold-rolled steel andzinc-coated steel sheets had consistently sold well in the US as wellas Indonesia , Thailand and Malaysia .
In the firstnine months of the year, the association's members produced 3.7 milliontonnes of steel, a year-on-year increase of more than 5 percent./.