Ha Noi-headquartered steel manufacturer Phuc Tien (PHT) company yesterday became the 198th firm to list on the HCM City Stock Exchange.

It hopes the move will provide greater liquidity to its shares and enable it to raise funds for future projects. The company has a charter capital of VND110 billion (US$6.1 million) with foreign investors having a stake of just 0.45 per cent. It runs a factory in northern Hung Yen Province that produces rolled steel, roofing sheets, pre-fabricated structures and coated steel pipe with an annual output of 300,000 tonnes, according to chairman Nguyen Manh Ha.

Another factory with a capacity of 100,000 tonnes per year will begin operations later this year in Hai Phong.

Ha said the company was planning a new plant in Hai Duong Province in co-operation with a foreign and a domestic partner.

His company would contribute 50 per cent of the total $40 million investment in this project, which is expected to kick off construction in early 2010 and completed in nine months. PHT is also expanding into the real estate business. Apart from an 18-storeyed headoffice building now under construction in Ha Noi, the company is working on procedures to develop an urban area in Hai Duong Province that could cover up to 100ha.