Dubai-based Alam Steel Ltd yesterday announced a Dh100 million joint venture with South Africa’s Macsteel SA as part of a Dh1 billion five-year expansion programme across the Gulf region.  The 50:50 joint venture facility in Jebel Ali Free Zone, to be operational within a year, will be Middle East’s first service centre for processing high grade steel plates, said Shyam Bhatia, Chairman of Alam Steel, which also operates a 500,000 tonne steel debar processing plant in in Dubai Investment Park.Bhatia said the joint venture with Macsteel SA, will be expanded to other GCC countries by setting up similar ventures. ‘Within a year, we will set up operations in Saudi Arabia and Qatar as part of our expansion drive in the GCC which will see us investing more than Dh1 billion in five years,’ he said.

The Dubai facility is designed to cater for the petrochemical, mining & earthmoving, shipbuilding, construction, manufacturing, and fabrication industries. “We are very proud to be partners with Macsteel who are global leaders in the business. The service centre will complement our existing steel businesses making us the most complete steel company in the region. We will be the only company to offer value added processing for all the steel products we sell,” stated Vikram Bhatia, Director Alam Steel Ltd and Board Member, Macsteel Gulf FZCO.

He said a complete range of flat steel plates will be processed by the service centre, controlled and backed up by a competent team of engineers.  Cut to length, saw, and drilling services will also be available for long products.

“Macsteel Service Centre SA is excited to partner with Alam Steel who are pioneers of the steel industry in this region. Entering the GCC market is in line with our strategy of diversifying our geographic base which follows on from the very successful entry into the UAE and the GCC by our International trading colleagues Macsteel International FZCO based in JAFZA since 2004 and their sister shipping company MUR FZCO who moved to JAFZA in 2006,” said Michael Pimstein, CEO Macsteel Service Centre SA and Board Member, Macsteel Gulf FZCO. ‘The Middle East region offers tremendous opportunities for us to grow. We will be looking initally looking at organic growth and later look for acquisitive opportunities,’ he said.

The factory will have eight  bays housing various machines like CNC, cold saw and drilling machines giving complete flexibility to execute a variety of jobs.  Macsteel Service Centre SA will bring over 40 years experience in running high end service centres around the world to the GCC market

 Share

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...