Taipei, April 23, 2008 (CENS)--Faced with the Formosa Plastics Group`s massive investment in a large steel mill in Vietnam, E United Group is also planning to boost its investments in that nation.

E United said it would officially kick off construction of a steel mill in Vietnam sometime in July this year and the proposed plant will begin mass production in June 2011.

I.S. Lin, chairman of the E United Group, predicted Vietnam would see annual output of steel amount to more than 30 million metric tons by 2018 if the Vietnam government won`t implement a macroeconomic control policy like that in mainland China.

Seeing the promising prospects of the steel industry, E United has tied up with Tycoons Group Enterprise Co., one of Taiwan`s leading manufacturers of wire rods, to set up a large-sized steel mill in central part of Vietnam. The steel mill, which has broken ground in October last year, is designed to have an annual output of seven million metric tons of crude steel. E United Group`s Yieh Phui Enterprise Co. and Yieh United Steel Co. together hold 90% stake in the steel mill with the remainder going to Tycoons.

E United said the steel mill has passed through environmental impact assessment and the Vietnam government has issued license for the construction of the steel mill.

Originally E United and Tycoons planned to invest US$1.65 billion in building the steel mill. Recently, they decided to raise the investment to US$2.6 billion.

Lin noted the first-phase construction includes three small blast furnaces each measuring 450 cubic meters, and a large blast furnace of 4,350 cubic meters, plus a production line for hot-rolled steel with annual production capacity of 3.5 million metric tons. The second-phase construction will add another blast furnace of 4,350 cubic meters.

(by Ben Shen)