LS Cable & System (LSC&S) announced that the company has completed building its first plant in Africa, located in an industrial city in Egypt.

A press release said that LSC&S established a joint venture with a local cable installation company, MAN, Tenth of Ramadan City, near Cairo, in January 2020. The company wants to expand its market presence to East African and Middle Eastern countries, which have a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Egypt.

“Export barriers are rising due to the forming of regional economic blocks around the world,” said Myung Roe-Hyun, President & CEO of LS Cable & System. “We will reinforce our competitiveness by directly investing in key hub countries.” With the Egyptian subsidiary, LSC&S now has 11 overseas production subsidiaries, including those in the U.S., China, Vietnam and Poland.

The release noted that the Egyptian cable market is annually growing by more than 5% due to facts such as population growth and the need to replace and upgrade old power grids. “There is a high demand for power cables in Africa, including Egypt, but export barriers are high due to the high tariffs (about 20%) and logistics costs,” said a LSC&S official. “We are planning to secure price competitiveness through local production and use the customer networks of our partners to get the business on the right track as soon as possible.”

LS Cable & System President & CEO Roe-Hyun Myung announced that the company is entering a deal to supply ISA CTEEP, a Brazilian energy transmission company, with 100 km of extra-high-voltage submarine and underground cables.

A press release said that the order from ISA CTEEP is for a project to provide a new power grids to Santa Catarina Island, a vacation spot in southern Brazil. ISA CTEEP is responsible for 25% of the total power transmission of Brazil, and 60% of total power transmission of the Southeastern region. This Brazil project, a first for LS Cable & System, will resolve a local power shortage problem.

More than 60% of Brazil’s power depends on hydroelectric generation using the Amazon River, Parana River, Xingu River and others, the release said. If there is a drought then power shortages can be prolonged. so the Brazilian government wants to expand its power grids and diversify its power supply to include wind and solar. The expected result will be an expanded and more diversified power market.

"This first supply of submarine cables to Brazil laid down the foundation for expanding into the Brazilian market," said LS Cable & System CEO Roe-Hyun Myung. "Also, we are planning to make our best efforts to advance into neighboring countries like Columbia through cooperation with ISA CTEEP, whose large shareholder is a Columbian power company."

The release notes that LS Cable & System has become one of the top three global cablemakers by supplying submarine cable products to large projects in Europe, the Americas and Asia. The company said that its successful completion of the first offshore wind farm in the U.S. and large submarine power grid projects throughout the Americas, including Canada and Venezuela, were recognized as significant achievements that helped win the contract.