Posted on 08 Dec 2015
The manager of a steel-structure company at Ha Noi's Quang Minh Industrial Park said the price of Chinese black steel foil (mainly used for construction works and facilities) the company imported from China has dropped by 40 per cent to VND7.3 million per tonne in the past few months.
Cheap prices are the main reason behind the rising imports of the black steel foil, he said.
He said his company also imported Chinese zinc-coated steel, whose prices have fallen from VND12.5 million per tonne earlier this year to VND7.5 million now. Imports have risen by 50 per cent this year.
Imports of steel sheets, in which local producers are considered strong, have also been large. According to the Viet Nam Steel Association (VSA), they rose from 750,000 tonnes last year to 1 million tonnes in just the past nine months.
The upshot is that in the past ten months imports of various types of steel from China amounted to 7.71 million tonnes, a 62 per cent rise year-on-year.
Imports of steel alloys in the form of rolls, rods and even ingots have risen 10-fold even as their prices dropped by 100 per cent to 200 per cent from last year.
The sharpest fall was reported in the prices of alloy ingots — from $1,800 per tonne to $413. The general director of a steel company in the south told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper that Chinese manufacturers add chrome or boron to steel ingots used in construction to enjoy the zero tax rate on alloys. Pure steel ingots attract import tariffs of 5-10 per cent.
Yet, these alloys are used for construction after being imported, he said.
Most of the imported steel rolls and rods are supplied to construction works across the country at VND10 million per tonne, over VND1 million lower than the prices of local products.
Nguyen Van Sua, the deputy chairman of VSA, said alloys containing less than 0.3 per cent chrome can be used like normal steel.
The association cited customs figures showing that import of ingots containing chrome rose from 3,000 tonnes in August to 62,000 tonnes in September, saying the imports would keep rising if no action is taken.
As of mid-September 1.1 million tonnes of ingots had been imported, three times the volume in the year ago period, 75 per cent of them from China.
Last month VSA accused China of trade fraud in exporting steel ingots to Viet Nam.
In a letter to the ministries of industry and trade, finance, and science and technology, the association said cheap steel ingots several China exporters cheated to enjoy tax breaks.
"This is not the first time that cheap steel ingots from China have flooded the domestic market," it said.
Local producers, unable to compete, are running at just 60 per cent of their 11 million tonne capacity.
