The Malaysia government has raised the ceiling price of steel bars and billets by 12 percent effective December 1.

Consequently the billet prices will be priced between RM1,907 and RM2,035/ton from between RM1,703 and RM1,817/ton previously. Prices of mild steel round bars and high-tensile deformed bars are revised to between RM2,225 and RM2,419.

The increase would help narrow the gap between the local and international selling prices of long steel products, which are widely used in construction. However, international prices are still higher than domestic prices.

Currently the total industry capacity for billets is more than 5 million tons a year and about 3 million to 3.5 million tons a year for steel bars.