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Steel sector in New Year slump
The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) has reported that steel production and consumption faced difficulties in January due to an imbalance in supply and demand.
Many businesses only managed to achieve 40-50 per cent of their production capacity, fuelling production costs.
Demands for steel after the Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday dropped significantly despite reduced sale prices. Purchasing power was rather low as most construction projects had been completed before Tet.
In January, iron and raw steel output was estimated at 236,800 tonnes, down 22.4 per cent against the same period last year, while rolled steel output was estimated at 309,800 tonnes, up 16.7 per cent, and 248,700 tonnes of steel bars were produced, down 3 per cent.
Some steel mills temporarily halted production during Tet to save operation costs, knowing market demand would not increase after Tet.
To ease business challenges and remove barriers, the steel sector should focus investment on the production of steel ingots to reduce dependence on imported materials.
As of January 25, MoIT temporarily imposed an anti-dumping tariff on some cold-rolled stainless steel products imported from mainland China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan.
Earlier, on January 1, MoIT passed regulations to apply national technical standards for steel-reinforced concrete, with the aim of protecting the legitimate rights of domestic producers and customers.
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