Thai flat steel producers welcome anti-dumping duty hike on Korean HRC imports

Paragraph entered by Atlantic migration, in order for SteelFirst articles to display correctly on Metal Bulletin.

“The anti-dumping measure as a result of justification conducted fairly by the anti-dumping committee will help protect our business as well as other domestic hot-rolled steel makers from the price-dumping steel from South Korea,” a spokesman for Sahaviriya Steel Industries (SSI) said in an email response on Friday August 23.

G Steel, another steel company Steel First spoke to, also welcomed the move.

The country’s Ministry of Commerce announced two weeks ago that the anti-dumping duties on South Korean HRC imports will be imposed at rates ranging from 13.58% to 58.85%. These are scheduled to last through May 22, 2014, from August 8, 2013.

The tax rate for shipments from Hyundai Steel will remain unchanged at 13.69%, but imports from Posco will now be subject to a duty of 13.58%, compared with 0% tax previously.

Shipments from other Korean mills will be taxed at 58.85%, up from 13.69% previously.

The review on the anti-dumping rates followed a petition raised by SSI, G Steel, GJ Steel and Sahaviriya Plate Mill.

Thailand’s apparent consumption for flat steel products rose 14.1% to 11.3 million tonnes last year, with imports taking a bigger share of the market at the expense of domestic production.

Imports of flat products in 2012 rose 24.3% year-on-year to 8.8 million tonnes, while production fell 9.5% over the same period to around 3 million tonnes.