Growing demand for Thai steel is set to continue next year, strongly supported by the government's massive infrastructure investment.
Mr Win wants close monitoring of imports.
However, analysts and industry officials say Thai steelmakers are unlikely to completely capitalise on the rising trend as cheap steel from China has been flooding the market, eroding the market share of domestic producers.
Demand for Thai domestic steel is expected to rise 2.3%-4.5% next year from 8.4-8.6 million tonnes due to be used this year on rising consumption from the construction sector, according to the Kasikorn Research Center (K-Research). The growth rate in 2015 was 2%.
"The government's massive investment in infrastructure is the main reason for the boost in demand for construction steel and the steel sector in general," said an analyst at K-Research.
The growing automotive industry will also help drive steel needs this year as well as next year.
K-Research expects steel demand in the auto sector to grow 1.2%-2.8% this year to around 3 million tonnes.
Together, total steel demand from several sectors will be 16-17 million tonnes this year.
Rising demand may not provide opportunity for Thai steelmakers to capitalise as cheap steel from China is still being dumped on the Thai market, the analyst said.
Win Viriyaprapaikit, president and chief executive of SET-listed steelmaker Sahaviriya Steel Industries Plc and member of a Thai steelmakers' group said the Thai steel market is still adversely affect by cheap Chinese steel.
The Thai government has imposed anti-dumping measures and duties to increase prices of imported steel from China to locally made steel levels to allow all players to compete fairly.
But the moves are unlikely to help Thai steelmakers as the cheap steel from China is still being imported and snatching the market share of Thai steelmakers, Mr Win said.
The Chinese government has said it will continue to cut steel production by 100-150 million tonnes annually to reduce global steel supply glut.
The measure, however, has a small impact as total Chinese steel production in the first nine months of this year stood at 601 million tonnes, compared with 604 million tonnes in the same period last year, according to the World Steel Association.
"We would like to ask the Thai government to keep monitoring the steel industry, especially cheap imported steel from China, to protect local steelmakers in a sustainable way," said Mr Win.
With Thai anti-dumping rules still in place, a certain amount of Chinese steel continues to be imported through other channels, which is a loophole, said Nava Chantanasurakon, vice-president of the Association of Thai Cold-rolled Steel.
Mr Nava said Chinese steelmakers export cheap steel to Vietnam, which is being used as a centre to distribute and re-export to Thailand to avoid anti-dumping duties.
"With this method, Chinese steel exported to Vietnam has doubled over the past few years," said Mr Nava.
The quantity of Chinese steel exported to Vietnam has increased more than 100% over the past few years to reach 13 million tonnes so far this year.
This indicates that there is still a loophole, ensuring the failure of Thai anti-dumping measures to protect local steelmakers.
Analysts suggest the best way to help Thai local steelmakers to sustainably survive in the long term is to invest more in research and development as well as advanced technologies so that local steel products will be of high quality to enable them to compete better in the high-end market where there are fewer competitors.
This would be better than asking for the government's constant protection to prevent imports, which is unlikely to be effective, said the analyst at K-Research.