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Official calls for end to low-quality iron imports
Viet Nam Steel Association chairman Pham Chi Cuong is urging new standards on pig iron imports in order to reduce the high number of incoming shipments blocked at ports by customs officials.
"The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and other State agencies have been discussing and gathering expert comments on a draft of technical and environmental regulations for pig iron imports for several years, but the standards still haven't been issued," Cuong said.
Over the last three years, he noted, many containers of imported pig iron had been held on the dock, unable to clear customs, with customs officials claiming the shipments were mixed with hazardous substances and violated environmental rules.
"Pig iron usually contains impurities but, under the rules of some countries, iron that is at least 97-per-cent pure can be imported," Cuong said.
Countries often ban the import of pig iron mixed with explosive or radioactive substances or toxic chemicals, he said, but other impurities in scrap metal could be destroyed during the refining process.
Vietnamese customs officials, meanwhile, have not detected any shipments mixed with explosive, radioactive or toxic substances.
"Most are mixed with rags, waste rubber, lubricants, or cotton," he said.
Environment police and customs officials were only assessing the presence of banned materials by eye rather than testing samples, Cuong noted.
Barring the imports had impeded steelmakers' access to raw materials, and companies also had lost billions of dong due to storage at ports, he added.
Viet Nam now has nine major steel plants that import about 3 million tonnes of pig iron annually, mostly from the US, Japan, Turkey and the Middle East, according to the Viet Nam Steel Association. Demand for pig iron imports was forecast to increase to 4-5 million tonnes over the next few years since domestic supplies could satisfy only 30 per cent of demand.
But Tran Hong Ha, director of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection, said it was essential to enforce strict rules and appropriate standards to prevent companies from importing pig iron mixed with toxic substances and impurities that might affect the refining process and quality of final products.
Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Pham Khoi Nguyen said the ministry was continuing to create conditions for companies to import if they have sufficient storage facilities and equipment to deal with the impurities.
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