Indonesia exports steel products for 1st time to New Zealand

JAKARTA, July 26 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian Trade Minister Zulkifli Hasan inaugurated on Tuesday the first export of Indonesia-produced structure and plate steel to New Zealand.

The 3,800 metric tons of steel products worth 4 million U.S. dollars were produced by PT Gunung Raja Paksi (GGRP), a member of Gunung Steel Group, one of Indonesia's largest private steel companies with a production capacity of 2.2 million tons per year.

Hasan said that the exported steel would be used to establish a hospital in New Zealand.

"I really appreciate the GGRP for its hard work to improve Indonesia's steel production, even amid the pandemic. We have to be grateful that we can still push our exports," Hasan said in a written statement after the inauguration.

He said that steel was one of the commodities with the largest export values in Indonesia.

In 2021, the value of Indonesia's iron and steel exports reached 21.4 billion dollars, up by 90.2 percent from 11.2 billion dollars in 2020, according to data from the trade ministry.

The export values of iron and steel have reached 12.5 billion dollars during the January-May period.

"The significant growth that we have made has proved the success of the government's policy to focus on the downstream industry," Hasan said.