wiredInUSA December 2017

New plant for domestic cables

Competition commission findings

Image: www.lscable.com Construction work has begun in Myanmar on LS Cable & System Asia Ltd’s new power cable manufacturing plant in Thilawa Special Economic Zone, east of the capital Yangon. The 19,800m 2 facility will produce overhead wires for power transmission or distribution, and low voltage cables for buildings and houses. The company aims to complete the construction by November 2019. The company expects the new cable factory to significantly reduce Myanmar’s reliance on cable imports, which account for more than 50 percent of the country’s total cable demand, and to help lower cable prices in the country. Myanmar’s power cable market is expected to grow at about 10 percent per year. For the business in Myanmar, LS C&S Asia established a joint venture, LS-Gaon Cable Myanmar, with its subsidiary company Gaon Cable Co, with an initial investment in May 2017 of $18 million.

South African power cable supplier Alvern Cables has admitted that it engaged in price fixing and market division tendering between November 2001 and November 2012. A competition tribunal has confirmed an administrative penalty of five percent of Alvern’s 2010 turnover. The cables in question were mainly building wires. The competition commission first lodged a complaint with the tribunal in March 2010 and the complaint was updated in May that year to include other companies in the power cable supply market. In its complaint, the commission said the investigation had revealed that South Ocean Electric Wire Company (SOEW), Alvern, Tulisa Cables and Aberdare Cables had allegedly agreed to directly or indirectly fix the sellingpriceof power cables to wholesale distributors and OEMs, and Alvern and Aberdare had agreed to divide markets by allocating these customers in terms of the supply of power cables. Alvern has admitted it contravened the competition act in regard to these complaints. The tribunal has confirmed an administrative penalty against SOEW, while Aberdare Cables has been granted conditional leniency.

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wiredInUSA - December 2017