The fulcrum of the million-ton promise
“For the past 2-3 years, Hoa Phat Group has been researching rail steel products and I affirm that the production of rail steel for high-speed railways is completely within Hoa Phat's capabilities,” billionaire Tran Dinh Long responded to the Government leader's question based on the reality of operating in the steel industry for over 25 years and the preparations that are being carried out methodically and actively.
Even the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Hoa Phat Group committed: "To provide enough steel of all kinds to serve the North-South High-Speed Railway Project, especially rail steel and high-strength prestressed steel with international quality but more competitive prices than imported goods".
After the success of the Iron and Steel Complex in Hai Duong, Hoa Phat has continuously made strong progress in the steel industry. The Hoa Phat Dung Quat 1 Iron and Steel Complex was built on an area of nearly 400 hectares, with a capacity of 5.6 million tons/year, an investment capital of more than 3 billion USD, and is performing very well in production.
The Hoa Phat Dung Quat 2 Iron and Steel Complex Project has a total investment of VND85,000 billion, a design capacity of 5.6 million tons/year, the main product is high-quality hot-rolled coil (HRC). The project will start operating in the first quarter of 2025 and will be fully completed in 2026. At that time, Hoa Phat's steel production capacity will reach over 14 million tons/year, if fully utilized, it will put the Group into the Top 30 largest steel producers in the world.
Being careful and methodical, Mr. Long and his colleagues have chosen the most modern technologies from Europe and G7 countries, even more modern than many Chinese steel factories, to apply to the production activities of the Hoa Phat Dung Quat Iron and Steel Complex. Another reason is that Hoa Phat has a strategy of not stopping with popular products.
Since its establishment in Dung Quat, Hoa Phat has aimed to produce steel products with high requirements on technical and technological content, meeting the country's investment and development needs, including especially important traffic infrastructure projects such as high-speed railways, highway systems, etc.
In order for Hoa Phat to climb the ladder of quality, the Group's team of engineers has mastered the technology to produce high-end products such as cold-stamping steel wire, arc-welded steel wire, steel for elevator cables, weather-resistant steel plates and especially steel rolls for automobile tire lining (tirecord steel).
It is known that the wire ropes have a very small diameter of 0.15-1.8 mm, no different from a hair, but require special physical and mechanical properties, extremely high purity, and very low gas impurities. They have been produced at the rolling line 3 of Hoa Phat Dung Quat Steel Plant since 2022 to supply Hyosung (Korea), Bekeart (Belgium). Not only that, Hoa Phat also achieved certification to supply raw steel for the production of elevator cables and crane cables for Japanese partners.
At the annual general meeting of shareholders in April 2024, Mr. Long said that Hoa Phat is researching the production of high-quality products such as silicon steel - a product that no other company in Vietnam can produce. The group also aims to produce specialized rail steel for trains with speeds of up to 800 km/h.
Confident in the path they have chosen, Hoa Phat leaders said that in the quality hierarchy, if producing steel for ball bearings, valve springs, alloy springs, steel for car tire linings... is difficult at level 10, then producing steel for high-speed train rails is only at level 8. To realize the set goals, Hoa Phat is promoting the completion of necessary procedures to clear the land and implement projects at Hoa Tam Industrial Park (in Nam Phu Yen Economic Zone).
Among Hoa Phat's projects in Phu Yen province, the project that has attracted the most attention is the Hoa Phat Iron and Steel Complex, often referred to by the captain of Hoa Phat as the Dung Quat Project, 3 with an investment capital of 5 billion USD. The project's expected product structure focuses on high-quality steel lines for mechanical engineering such as rail steel, steel plates, structural steel, shaped steel, and smooth round bars (SBQ).
Ready for the new era
After a long period of research, in October-November 2024, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Hoa Phat Group and a team of technology experts went to study the reality at many of the world's leading steel rail factories in Europe. Hoa Phat also began negotiating with partners, suppliers of steel rail production equipment for the world's leading high-speed railways. The advantage is that most of these suppliers are partners who have accompanied the Group for many years.
Need to quickly remove institutional barriers
- Chairman of Hoa Phat Group Tran Dinh Long 
In order for the country to develop and for production and business activities to improve, in my opinion, it is necessary to especially remove institutional and policy obstacles. Laws are made by people and can be adjusted. This needs to be done faster, faster and faster. If done quickly, it will be very beneficial for businesses. Next, there needs to be a document clearly showing support and protection for domestic production.
Recently, the leaders of the Party, State and Government have given many instructions that make us feel warm, because we have received timely attention. We hope that the Government, ministries, departments and branches will have specific policies, support and legitimate protection according to the regulations of Vietnam and the world for domestic production so that businesses can feel secure in investing. 
The trips are to learn about the layout of technological equipment lines for the factory, the way of operating and organizing production, the production technology process, the quality control process throughout the entire process from preparing clean raw materials produced from iron ore, vacuum refining to refine the highest purity metal and remove harmful gas impurities, online quality control system, UT equipment to check for defects inside steel rails (Ultrasonic testing)...
At the same time, Hoa Phat Dung Quat Steel cooperates with the School of Materials - Hanoi University of Science and Technology to continuously organize in-depth training courses on high-quality steel products, focusing on special types of steel and complex production techniques such as steel for making car tire belts; electrical engineering steel (silicon steel); steel for making rails for high-speed trains.
All of the above moves are aimed at preparing to deploy the project of producing steel rails for high-speed railways, both in terms of technology and human resources as soon as the site is available, with a commitment to invest in equipment and transfer technology to produce the best and highest quality steel rails like those produced in Europe.
In fact, Vietnam used to make railway rails 20-25 m long. However, if making a high-speed railway of 150-200 km/h, the rails would be about 50 m long. And for high-speed railways with speeds up to 350 km/h, the rails must be 100 m long. Hoa Phat even calculated rails up to 120 m long to reduce welds on the high-speed railway, allowing the system to operate stably at high speeds.
However, businessman Tran Dinh Long said that building rails also has its own characteristics and difficulties. For example, steel rail factories in Korea, Japan, and China are all located right next to high-speed rail projects. If the factory is not near the project, transporting rails hundreds of meters long will be more complicated and difficult than transporting wind turbine blades about 70-75 meters long that caused a stir in Vietnam more than 2 years ago.
Sharing about the major revolutionary policies and decisions of the Party and State to bring the country into the era of national development, the leader of Hoa Phat Group said that the policy of promoting public investment, focusing on building infrastructure, highways, modernizing and upgrading airports, ports, etc. has opened up opportunities for economic development and better investment attraction in all localities.
The North-South high-speed railway project, which has just been approved by the National Assembly for investment, is a project of national strategic importance. The Government's request that contractors use domestically produced products and goods to promote the railway industry and supporting industries, in order to increase autonomy and raise the level of domestic enterprises is the right policy.
“Hoa Phat is ready to participate in the bidding to supply all types of steel for the Project, ensuring progress and quality according to European standards,” said the Group’s leader, and proposed that the Government “especially remove institutional policies and administrative procedures, because this will help businesses promote all their inherent resources to reach new heights and develop more strongly.”
Along with that are specific policies to encourage, support and protect domestic investment and production activities in accordance with Vietnamese and international regulations. This will help businesses feel more secure in promoting investment, expanding their scale of operations and participating more deeply in the global value chain. Through this, Vietnam will form more "leading cranes" which are domestic production enterprises strong enough to reach international standards.
It will not be difficult to imagine a Hoa Phat in the Top 20 largest steel producers in the world when the Phu Yen Iron and Steel Complex Project is put into operation, as Mr. Long mentioned in April 2024. That is certainly the sweet result of the persistent journey, overcoming thousands of obstacles of those who always find a reasonable path to develop to new levels at Hoa Phat.
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