Vietnamese steel sector amidst US-China trade war

Improving material supply and proving product origin are ways to limit the impact of trade defence lawsuits amid the growing US – China trade war, according to insiders.
Vietnamese steel sector amidst US-China trade war ảnh 1At Lao Cai iron and steel plant (Source: VNA)
Hanoi (VNA) – Improving materialsupply and proving product origin are ways to limit the impact of trade defencelawsuits amid the growing US-China trade war, according to insiders.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade forecastthat the steel sector will maintain annual growth of nearly 20 percent thisyear, including construction steel (up 10 percent), cold rolled coil (5percent), straight welded steel pipes (15percent), galvanised iron sheet and colour coated paint (12 percent). Hotrolled coil is expected to see the strongest growth of up to 154 percent.

Hoa Sen Corporation plans to put intooperation a line to manufacture cold rolled coils, galvanised and coloured coatsteel with a capacity of 350,000 tonnes this year while Tung Ho company willlaunch a line able to produce 600,000 tonnes of construction steel.

Hoa Phat Corporation will embark on a rolledsteel project with a capacity of roughly 600,000 tonnes in August and build afurnace in the central province of Quang Ngai, which is expected to beinaugurated in 2019 and eventually yield 3 million tonnes of steel sheets andcords each year.

Tran Dinh Long, Chairman of Hoa PhatCorporation, proudly said it is the first time a Vietnamese firm has been ableto manufacture hot rolled coils.

Nguyen Thao Vy from VietCapital Securitiescommented that with the launch of many manufacturing lines, domestic steelfirms could prove origin of products to avoid anti-dumping taxes.

Vice Chairman of the Vietnam SteelAssociation Nguyen Van Sua said Vietnam is suspected of being a transit forChinese steel to move abroad.

To counter that, the US Department ofCommerce imposed a 199.76 percent anti-dumping tax and a 256.44 percent specialconsumption tax on Vietnamese cold rolled coils of Chinese origin, afterconcluding that such products avoided the US’s anti-dumping tax on the Chineseproducts.

In recent years, though domestic demand forsteel has been met, China has adopted measures to send steel to Vietnam, fromcutting prices to export incentives. Sometimes, Chinese steel is 20-30 percentcheaper than Vietnamese one.

To combat this, Vietnam took trade defencemeasures by imposing a 10 – 30 percent anti-dumping tax on Chinese steel.

Sua suggested that domestic firms invest intechnological advances, improve governance capacity to increase competitivenessand study international practices.

He called on the State to continue withtrade defence measures and ensure rolled coils used in construction under theguise of other kinds of steel are taxed correctly.

Statistics from the General Department ofCustoms showed that Vietnam exported iron and steel worth 3.15 billion USD lastyear, up 36 percent in volume and 55 percent in value from 2016.

Imports of Chinese steel also decreased from60 percent of total steel imports in 2016 to 40 percent in 2017, and areforecast to fall to 38 percent this year.-VNA
VNA

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