According to Mining News Pro -Krakatau Steel- Indonesia`s state-owned steel maker, has set targets of exports value of USD 100 Million for the full year of 2018, as the company is expanding its overseas markets, Bisnis Indonesia reported today, Sept. 24.
Silmy Karim, the newly-appointed Krakatau Steel`s president director, said as quoted by the Indonesian-language daily, the company has collected USD 77 million on exports revenue until the second week of September, excluding exports revenue from its unit, PT Krakatau Posco.
Silmy said the company is optimistic it can achieve the target as it continues expanding export markets until end of 2018.
Purwono Widodo, Krakatau Steel`s marketing director said exports will also get a boost from exports to Australia after an antidumping investigation on Indonesia`s steel products to Australia ended. Thus, Indonesia`s steel sales to Australia has resumed to normal.
Australia Anti-Dumping Commission announced in April that it had stopped antidumping investigation against a steel rod in coils, including from Indonesia. There were three companies which had been accused of dumping their products, namely PT Ispat Indo, PT Gunung Raja Paksi (PT GRP), and PT Master Steel (PT MS). But they were later spared from the antidumping allegation.
According to Purwono, sales volume to Australia has reached thousands of tons, surging from just few hundreds of tons.
Purwono said the company is boosting exports to take advantage of strengthening U.S. dollar.
“Exports can contribute between 10%-15%, but we still have bigger potential,” he said as cited by Bisnis Indonesia.
For domestic sales, Purwono estimated, it will be able to achieve a double digit sales growth or around 20% in the second quarter of 2018, in line with the government`s policy to tightening steel imports.
PT Krakatau Steel sold 1.05 million tons of steel products in the first six months of this year, rising 24.4% from 841,101 tons in the same period last year. The company targets to sell 2.8 MnT of steel products this year, rising 40% from 2017 target.