Posted on 30 May 2015
Ann Joo's US dollar borrowings currently stands at about US$53 million.
"For certain trade bills at present, we actually borrow in the US dollar, for trade financing only due to imports. In the past, we had huge exports for a natural hedge.
"We foresee not having much of an export revenue now, and will cut it down to zero for the Malaysian operations," he told reporters after the company's annual general meeting here, on Friday.
Moving forward, Lim said the company will look internally to improve productivity and plan an aggressive market strategy to defend market share from Chinese imports, while trying to keep inventory low.
He said Ann Joo will also continue to work with other steel players, locally and regionally, in the hope of some effective measures or trade actions being taken to lower imports from China.
"We have been talking to the government, especially the Ministry of International Trade and Industry and I think in principle, they have agreed to come up with few measures against the relentless dumping of Chinese steel products," he added.
Lim said he hopes the measures can be finalised and gazetted soon, to at least, partly mitigate the impact on local industry players to provide more breathing space.
"The rest depends on the Chinese government. There were new environmental laws or acts imposed in January this year, which resulted in certain steel mills in Shandong province being shut down," he added.
According to Lim, Malaysia's steel demand has been really strong for the past two years.
