Steel assoc. worries over massive import of cheap steel

The Vietnam Steel Association has voiced grave concerns over the imports en masses of cheap steel products, saying such uncontrolled imports would injure local steel makers.Nguyen Tien Nghi, vice chairman of the association, told the Daily on Monday that the local market was now awash with cheap, poor quality cold-rolled steel sheets mostly imported from China and Russia. Many local steel makers have had to slash output due to the unjust competition, he said.

Vietnam’s General Department of Customs said as much as 600,000 tons of cold-rolled steel sheets was imported into Vietnam in the first ten months of the year.

Nghi said during the first 15 days of November, the amount of such products imported from China and Russia exceeded 32,000 tons. These products are sold in Vietnam at much lower prices than local steel, he said.

At the moment, Vietnam has several companies producing cold-rolled steel sheets, including Vietnam Steel Corporation, Posco Vietnam, Hoa Sen Group, Sunco and the others with a combined output of around two million tons each year.

Meanwhile, the annual demand of cold-rolled steel sheets of the country is just some 1.4 million tons. “As exporting these products has proved difficult in the current economic recession, the massive flow of steel products into the country will definitely harm local production,” he said.

To control the massive imports of poor quality cold-rolled steel sheets, the association last week suggested the Ministry of Science and Technology to issue the national standards for controlling cold-rolled steel sheets as soon as possible.

The association also proposed the ministry to combine with other related agencies to stop the import of poor quality, non-standard steel sheets into Vietnam.

Tags: vietnam steel import, Vietnam steel industry