– Asst. manager Ma, Han-ching at SHA Branch, and Asst. manager Chung, Jin-pyong on the Construction Steel team who met with each other at the Global Staff Training Session –
Pleas allow us to hear your introduction of the Egypt Gas Project, with which both of you proceeded.
Asst. Manager Ma, Huanqing(hereinafter referred to as ‘Ma’) : The name of the project is ‘Egypt Gas Pipeline Project. in early 2016, the Egyptian government announced a development plan for the new capital city-new Cairo for the next seven years. The new Cairo City is the place which can accommodate a population of 5 million. In late 2017, a natural gas company set up the first purchase plan for the natural gas pipeline required by New Cairo City purchase plan. This project is a core project of Egypt to such an extent to get the Egyptian president’s special concern.
Asst, Manager Jung, Jin-pyong(hereinafter referred to as ‘Jung’) : The purchase of the pipe to be used for GAS PIPE LINE construction for this new city was publicly announced as an international bidding, and this company came to do supply of pipes as the pipe was knocked down to this company which participated in the bidding with the pipe made in China. This person has maintained a close relationship with Asst. manager Ma, who worked together with me, from the time when I was a new employee up to the present thanks to the relation of the cooperation on Chinese pipe sourcing. We went on many business trips together, and I wonder if it is right to say that our relations have been created by comradeship while we have had a lot of drinking parties with a Chinese mill. To be short, I looked for asst. manager Ma unconditionally because I had a strong belief that this project could be feasible by virtue of practicable Chinese pipe supply, and finally, we happened to cooperate on the same project with asst. manager Ma.
What was a difficult part for you, if any, while getting this project going? And, how did you solve the problem?
Jung : Actually, the Chinese factory named BENXI, which is to supply goods this time, is on good terms with this company, but they are short of pipe project performance experience. Moreover, BENXI was a commercialism-focused seller, so it was a hard & time-consuming job for us to explain distinct characteristics of the project and adjusting conditions with the owner to back-to-back ones. Unlike commercial products, so big was our risk such as more than one year’s product warranty, and obligatory compensation of deferment in case of late delivery, etc; accordingly, it seems that the most difficult part in this project performance was to continuously coordinate views between the factory and owner.
Ma: Our contract was made in early June, but the project progress since then was slow due to Egyptian public officials’ business problem and Ramadan. Due to a tight deadline and price increases in raw materials, the head office tried to place an order to the factory for products in advance in an effort to secure the given period. We preordered products by winning BENXI Factory’s trust through negotiations with them under the circumstances of the absence of credit evidence and advance pay. The Egyptian party sent us related documents by opening credit evidence in mid-July. However, we maintained contacts between the head office, SHA Branch and BENXI because all our production process failed to go smooth. We made efforts to get the contract going smoothly through a great many communications and researches on all aspects by visiting the Factory many times.
Isn’t there any difficult part due to a different business style between Korea and China?
Ma : Yes, there was a tricky problems in the communication part. As an example, the Korean Factory was well equipped with documents when preparing for a bidding, whereas Chinese Factory was somewhat weak in document handling except a big factory having frequent international biddings. In addition, the Korean Factory prearranged the master plan for supply and production, and strictly implements them as planned. However, in many cases, the Chinese factory often failed to push ahead with their plan due to big flexibility in factory operation, and consequently, such an aspect, which could lead the other contracting party into a difficulty in doing communication with them, was thought to be obviously different from us.
Jung : The most difficult part for me was also to control the Chinese Factory in Korea. The Korean contracting party was ignorant of Chinese affairs, and neither did the Chinese contracting party know what happened between this company and the owner; consequently, there seemed to be a case where problems wouldn’t be solved properly because both parties thought about their hard situation only where they were placed. However, we were able to carry on with work after solving problems safely by virtue of smart troubleshooting of asst. Ma, who is proficient in Korean, as might be expected.
What are your future plan, or personal goals, if any?
Jung : An item of steel pipe, especially Korean steel pipe is having a hard time of it every year due to the decrease in competitiveness in SECTION 232, etc. As a breakthrough in such an adverse aspect, I am planning to increase the Chinese volume of business which is on a roll. This project is a Chinese one, on which our team won a contract in about nine years, but we won’t settle for it at all, and our biggest goal is to carry out one or two Chinese projects on an annual basis from now by making precious use of this Chinese project experience. As one of the exemplary cases of keeping in step between the head office and branch office, we are expecting to do cooperation on a lot bigger supplies with dear asst. Ma.
Ma : Actually, there arose several problems in proceeding with the project, but we managed to find the best solution by calmly analyzing the problem, and doing coordination with the countries involved. Such an experience was the very crop obtained through this project, and also my goal for which I have to make continuous efforts even for the time to come. In addition, I wish to be a trade expert in various areas by looking into the market conditions of not only the steel pipe area but also the other steel areas as well as chemistry areas, and our trade situation with various countries, and broadening my specialized areas.