In a statement, GSII president and chief executive officer Sushant Das said that FGI’s complaint about poor quality and inadequate volume of steel being produced by GSII "is a deliberate attempt by the association’s president to tarnish our image in the domestic market through a planned villification campaign showing ruthless disrespect for the facts."
Das said that he had invited FGI president Salvio Perez several times to visit GSII’s Iligan plant to see for himself GSII’s world class steel plant and quality assurance practices.
However, Das said, Perez always had an excuse not to visit or to meet with him.
Therefore, Das said, "I can only conclude that since we have done nothing to provoke him, Mr. Perez has motives that he is not communicating in his statements to the press."
Furthermore, Das said, "Perez has not even tried our products even for trial purposes... how can he credibly suggest doubt about our quality?"
Das further argued that "there is no empirical evidence of any kind to validate the false allegations made by Mr. Perez."
Das offered that "the quality of our products can be tested independently by anybody and at any laboratory or under the aegis of any qualified technical body and we will be glad to offer any kind of assistance to facilitate the process."
GSII, Das assured, "is a long-distance runner which is now 70 percent rehabilitated and producing high quality steel."
GSII, Das said, "is targeting to be fully operational shortly wherein it will have an annual capacity of 1.2 million tons of different steel products."
GSII, Das said, has exported over 40,000 metric tons of steel.
FGI claims that GSII cannot meet the quality requirements of domestic galvanizers utilizing continuous hot-dipped galvanizing process.
Perez explained that most galvanizers have complied with government’s mandate to modernize their facilities in line with the country’s commitment with the World Trade Organization (WTO) and in answer to government’s call for local enterprises to be globally competitive.
Perez said that local galvanizers have invested more than P14 billion in modern and state of the art facilities which have allowed them to export their products to the US, South America and other counties in Southeast Asia.