Nguyen Van Sua, vice chairman of the association, told the Daily on the sidelines of a seminar on the steel industry in HCMC on June 12 that local steel makers shipped nearly 1.4 million tons of steel products abroad in January-May, rising 35% year-on-year. The figure for all of 2017 may reach four million tons worth some US$3 billion, he noted.

“At the pace of steel export growth in the first five months, the industry is expected to export four million tons worth US$3 billion in all of 2017, while in 2016, the country earned US$2.5 billion from steel exports despite strong efforts.”

Apart from Southeast Asia as the steel industry’s traditional market, local manufacturers have managed to ship steel to the United States and the European Union. In late May, an enterprise sent a shipment of 12,000 tons worth US$9 million to the EU, Sua said.

Local steel consumption has not grown that strong this year. The vice chairman said local steel demand in January-May went up by 7.2% against the year-ago period, though production increased 12% to 7.9 million tons in the period.

The steel industry has total designed output of 27 million tons.

Sua said the sector is facing numerous protectionist measures from many foreign markets like Australia, the United States, Thailand and Malaysia. This tendency will have adverse impacts on local steel producers in the coming time.

To reduce risks of antidumping and other trade protectionist measures from overseas, Sua advised local firms to conduct thorough market surveys and diversify their markets because any sudden surge in exports to a particular market may prompt manufacturers there to petition anti-dumping investigations.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Australia has recently initiated anti-dumping probes into coiled steel imports from Vietnam, with a dumping margin reported by petitioners to be as high as 30.6%.

The steel association has predicted steel sales this year at 17 million tons, including 8.2 million tons of construction steel, an increase of one million tons against 2016. The steel price remains higher than last year, which is in tandem with the increasing global material price.

According to the association, the steel industry will post growth of 12-15% against 2016. Last year, it posted growth of 12% against 2015, which helped many steelmakers to earn profits after a long period of gloomy business.

Source: thesaigontimes.vn