Industrial department protects MSMEs while enforcing standards on key steel producers
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Hsu/Pearl (NP News) - Dec 17
According to Director-General U Thein Swe of the Industrial Supervision and Inspection Department (ISID) at the Ministry of Industry, monthly inspections are being carried out on iron-melting, steel-drawing factories in Sagaing and Mandalay that produce construction-grade materials.
There are currently 220 iron-melting and steel-drawing factories in total: 31 in Sagaing Region and 189 in Mandalay Region. Among these, only 11 factories—two in Sagaing and seven in Mandalay—are capable of producing construction-grade steel bars.
“In Myanmar, iron-melting and steel-drawing factories mainly produce small-scale items such as materials used for road paving, iron sheets and iron doors, components used in pumping machines, and parts used in sewing machines. Steel bar production is limited. Even when they make steel bars, most are for road paving, fencing and boundary posts. So they generally cannot produce construction-grade steel. Only two factories in Sagaing, seven in Mandalay, and nine in Yangon can produce steel bars that can be used for multi-storey buildings—up to around four-storey structures,” said Director-General U Thein Swe.
He added that monthly inspections are being conducted to ensure the steel bars produced by construction-grade factories in Sagaing, Mandalay, and Yangon meet the required standards.
“After the earthquake, people became wary of tall buildings and started constructing only low-rise structures. Because of that, the steel bars produced by these 18 factories are still being used. We inspect these 18 factories every month. During inspections, we check whether their products meet the required standards—whether the sizes they produce, from 12 mm to 25 mm, meet the designated measurements; whether the bars meet the required weight per three feet; and whether proper labels are affixed. If products fail to meet the standards, we instruct them not to produce or sell them. This period is focused on education and awareness-raising. We have not issued any orders to shut down factories, either verbally or in writing,” he said.
Due to challenges such as labor shortages and a lack of electricity, it is also learned that around 60 of the 220 factories have temporarily stopped operations.
“It would be undesirable if traditional iron-melting and steel-drawing businesses had to shut down because of the earthquake. If they decline while large-scale steel factories expand, traditional MSME-scale businesses may become unable to withstand future earthquake impacts. So we are protecting them from an MSME perspective. We have been inspecting only the 18 major factories so far, while leaving the others to operate freely. We are not pressuring or restricting them. Every month, we keep records of which factories are operating and which have stopped. Some factories have halted operations—61 in total: 33 in Mandalay and 28 in Sagaing. Their closures are not due to government orders but because of operational difficulties such as lack of electricity, lack of raw materials, shortage of workers, or market saturation,” he continued.