Posted on 06 Oct 2008
Vietnam Steel Association (VSA) reported that steel demand dropped fast during the past 5 months and there are still 400,000 tons of finished steel and 500,000 tons of billets piled up in stock.
VSA urged the government to reduce export tax on billets to 2 percent first, and then to remove it completely in time to come due to the regional steel demand having declined 10,000 and 250,000 in August and July, respectively, along with a price fall of nearly 5 dong/ton within the last 4 month period.
The Central Bank increased interest rates to ease inflation and shorten the state owned construction project; therefore VSA suggested that officials will need to act fast with serious tactics and measures to reduce the duty in order to move the unsold steel stocks.
