China Gerui Advanced Materials Group Limited Announces Increase in International Customers

ZHENGZHOU, China, April 22, 2013 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- China Gerui Advanced Materials Group Limited (NASDAQ: CHOP) ("China Gerui," or the "Company"), a leading high precision, cold-rolled steel producer in China, today announced that it has made steady progress in marketing internationally with three customers placing regular commercial orders for its high-end and narrow-strip steel. Since the international marketing initiatives began in June 2012, the Company has captured three new customers, with two customers in India and one customer located in Turkey.  Additionally, three potential customers are currently engaged in trials with China Gerui's specialized steel products in three other countries.

Two of the three initial customers began testing China Gerui's products before committing to becoming ongoing, regular customers. The current three customers are purchasing both wide- and narrow-strip high-precision, chromium-plated, cold-rolled strip steel. The initial application is for insulating wire and cable manufactured for the telecommunications industry with an average thickness of 0.15 mm and with widths ranging from 610 mm to 810 mm. Based on current order levels, it is estimated that the annual order requirements will total approximately 3,000 tons of this higher-margin product.

India and Turkey are both viewed as growth markets for steel. The World Steel Association indicated steel demand is expected to increase in India by 5.9% to 75.8 million tons in 2013 following 2.5% growth in 2012. Further, the Turkish Iron & Steel Producers Association (DCUD) stated steel consumption in Turkey is expected to rise 5.3% to 30 million tons in 2013 compared with 2012. The management of China Gerui believes its specialized, high-quality steel will meet limited competition and achieve a foothold in both markets.  

"With a focus on balancing our business mix from the current heavy concentration in the Chinese market, and to build our presence in higher-growth markets, our strategic shift to enhance our exports is expected to broaden our customer base, strengthen our capacity utilization, and increase our return on investment to build value for our shareholders. We anticipate that exports will be the fastest growth driver of sales over the next few years with a long-term goal of exports potentially matching domestic sales levels over time," commented Mr. Mingwang Lu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of China Gerui. "Exports represent another opportunity to leverage our products' value-to-price ratio both in emerging and well-developed markets as we increase our customers' profitability and competitiveness.  Emerging markets are ideal targets for China Gerui as they possess limited domestic production of high-precision, cold rolled products requiring imported products, and our high-quality, diversified product line offers more comprehensive solutions. On the other hand, well-developed markets present the opportunity to quickly take advantage of our lower cost and pricing structure to generate relatively larger orders and improve our customers' success."

Two potential customers, one in Thailand and one in Armenia, have placed orders to test the Company's high precision, chromium-plated, cold-rolled strip steel for application in the local telecommunications industry. Another U.S.-based potential customer is intensively testing the Company's products for application in the large food and beverage packaging industry, another higher-margin segment for China Gerui that could facilitate higher volume demand.

Sales terms to new export customers are consistent with the current domestic model whereby an initial cash deposit is pre-paid when an order is signed and the outstanding receivable is backed with a letter of credit upon product delivery.

Mr. Lu continued, "In addition, we have been adding new products such as laminated steel and chromium-plated steel, to our product portfolio to provide broader solutions to meet more of our customers' requirements and improve our competitiveness in both the domestic and foreign markets. We are also adding personnel and support resources to build our export marketing programs into a powerful brand building and sales tool.  We believe these initiatives will enable China Gerui to evolve into a world-class, international metals processor committed to building shareholder value."

About China Gerui Advanced Materials Group Limited

China Gerui Advanced Materials Group Limited is a leading niche and high value-added steel processing company in China. The Company produces high-end, high-precision, ultra-thin, high-strength, cold-rolled steel products that are characterized by stringent performance and specification requirements that mandate a high degree of manufacturing and engineering expertise. China Gerui's products are not standardized commodity products. Instead, they are tailored to customers' requirements and subsequently incorporated into products manufactured for various applications. The Company primarily sells its products to domestic Chinese customers with an emerging presence with international customers in a diverse range of industries, including the food and industrial packaging, construction and household decorations materials, electrical appliances, and telecommunications wires and cables. For more information, please visit http://www.geruigroup.com.

Safe Harbor Statement

Certain of the statements made in this press release are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning and protections of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act. Forward-looking statements include statements with respect to our beliefs, plans, objectives, goals, expectations, anticipations, assumptions, estimates, intentions, and future performance, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may be beyond our control, and which may cause the actual results, performance, capital, ownership or achievements of the Company to be materially different from future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical fact are statements that could be forward-looking statements. You can identify these forward-looking statements through our use of words such as "may," "will," "anticipate," "assume," "should," "indicate," "would," "believe," "contemplate," "expect," "estimate," "continue," "plan," "point to," "project," "could," "intend," "target" and other similar words and expressions of the future.

All written or oral forward-looking statements attributable to us are expressly qualified in their entirety by this cautionary notice, including, without limitation, those risks and uncertainties described in our annual report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2011 and otherwise in our SEC reports and filings, including the final prospectus for our offering.  Such reports are available upon request from the Company, or from the SEC, including through the SEC's Internet website at http://www.sec.gov. We have no obligation and do not undertake to update, revise or correct any of the forward-looking statements after the date hereof, or after the respective dates on which any such statements otherwise are made.

 

SOURCE China Gerui Advanced Materials Group Limited