LS Cable Grabs $13-m Transmission Lines Contract from MoEP
Zin Thu Tun/MBT
Demand for electric power is sharply increasing in Myanmar due to rapid economic growth, but the electrification rate is less than 30 percent.
South Korean wire and cable maker LS Cable & System (LS C&S) said its Vietnamese subsidiary, LS-VINA, has won a contract from the Ministry of Electric Power to supply transmission lines worth $13 million.
This is the largest contract that LS C&S has so far received from Myanmar and accounts for half of the annual power cable purchase of the Ministry.
This contract is expected to establish a bridgehead for LS C&S’s advance into the power market of Myanmar, the company said in a statement.
LS C&S competed with Chinese, Indonesian and Myanmar cable makers in the bidding for this contract but came out as the sole contractor. Previously, the Ministry of Electric Power used to split its orders among 3 to 4 cable makers.
The company claimed it was highly rated “in technology as well as in price competitiveness.”
“This contract is very meaningful in that we can pre-empt the Myanmar cable market, which is expected to grow quickly,” said Seon-Kook Kim, president of the Production Group of LS C&S.
“We are also planning to capitalise on the stable technology of the Vietnamese subsidiary to reinforce our marketing for telecommunication cables as well as for power cables.”
Demand for electric power is sharply increasing in Myanmar due to rapid economic growth, but the electrification rate is less than 30 percent. The government is following through with a plan launched in 2001 that will, through a total investment of more than $9 billion, bolster its transmission and distribution infrastructure in six stages through 2031.
The annual cable market in Myanmar is expected to double from $240 million in 2013 to $480 million in 2020, according to industry estimates.
LS C&S’s Vietnamese subsidiary has recently been taking advantage of its price competitiveness and technology to expand exports not only to Asian countries but also Europe and the Americas. Its holding company, LS C&S Asia is scheduled to be listed on the Korea Exchange in the first half of next year.
In 2014, the company’s sales amounted to KRW400 billion ($351.88 million), and for this year the goal is KRW480 billion ($422.26 million).
