Chinese steel planks seize the Middle East infrastructure market

December 6, 2025 - Benefiting from the intensive implementation of large-scale infrastructure projects such as NEOM Future City in the Middle East and Egypt's New Administrative Capital, the market demand for steel planks, as core safety equipment for high-altitude operations, continues to rise. Chinese steel plank enterprises have developed salt spray-resistant and high-temperature-resistant products tailored to the needs, and have become mainstream suppliers in the Middle East market by virtue of their technological adaptability and international certification advantages.

The high-temperature and high-salt spray climate in the Middle East places stringent requirements on the anti-corrosion and anti-slip properties of steel planks. Domestic enterprises have upgraded their technologies focusing on localized needs: adopting a composite process of hot-dip galvanizing and rare earth zinc-aluminum coating, which triples the salt spray corrosion resistance and is suitable for marine engineering scenarios along the Persian Gulf coast; the embossed and punched anti-slip technology enables the product's friction coefficient to reach above 0.5, effectively reducing operational risks in dry desert environments. Products from enterprises such as Hebei Hansheng Technology have passed the ISO 1461 galvanizing standard and Middle Eastern industrial safety certifications, and are exported to Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other countries, with annual sales increasing by 45% year-on-year. They have been successfully applied in key projects such as Saudi Arabia's NEOM Future City and the expansion around Dubai's Burj Khalifa.

Industry standardization is promoting market reshuffling, and the Middle East's requirements for indicators such as load-bearing capacity and anti-corrosion life of imported steel planks continue to increase. Leading Chinese enterprises have achieved product precision errors of ≤0.3mm through automated production lines, meeting the high-intensity operational needs of local large-scale infrastructure and gradually replacing traditional low-end products. It is predicted that the compound annual growth rate of the Middle East steel plank market will reach 9.1% from 2025 to 2030, with industrial infrastructure and marine engineering being the core demand areas.

Insiders said that Chinese enterprises are deepening their layout by establishing regional warehousing centers in the Middle East and providing customized solutions. In the future, they will further develop lightweight and intelligent early-warning steel planks to continuously consolidate their competitiveness in the Middle East market.