Vietnam exempted from temporary safeguard duties in exporting steel coils to South Africa
Thursday, July 17,2025
AsemconnectVietnam - Vietnam's steel has been officially exempted from temporary safeguard duties in South Africa, facilitating businesses to maintain exports of anti-corrosion steel coils to the potential SACU market.
Anti-corrosion steel coils have a wide path to the Southern African Customs Union
In the context of volatile international trade, good news has come to the Vietnamese steel industry when the Republic of South Africa decided not to apply temporary safeguard duties on anti-corrosion steel coils imported from Vietnam. This decision is not only an important victory but also affirms the competitive advantage of Vietnamese steel, helping Vietnamese businesses continue to stand firm in a potential export market such as the Southern African Customs Union (SACU).
Specifically, the International Trade Administration Commission of South Africa (ITAC) has issued a notice of application of provisional safeguard measures on corrosion resistant steel coils, but Vietnam has been included in the list of excluded countries. The key reason is that Vietnam is identified as a developing country and has a market share of this product imported into South Africa below the threshold of 3%. This is completely consistent with the regulations of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which allows exemption for developing countries with a small market share and total import volume not greater than 9%.
The ITAC investigation, initiated on 17 January 2025 and extended from May of 2021 to April of 2024, has pointed out a number of serious problems for the domestic steel industry in South Africa. ITAC has preliminarily concluded that there has been a sharp and sudden increase in imports, especially from China, with an increase of 17.16% from 2022 to 2023 alone.
This increase, according to ITAC, is due to overcapacity and the economic slowdown in China since 2021, coupled with the imposition of tariffs by other countries, which has caused Chinese steel exports to be diverted to markets with lower tariffs, including South Africa. As a result, the SACU steel industry has suffered serious damage, as evidenced by a significant decline in production, domestic sales, profits, market share, capacity utilisation and employment.
In light of this, ITAC has proposed a provisional safeguard duty of up to 52.34% for 200 days. Although there are other factors that contribute to the damage, such as declining demand or logistics problems, ITAC affirms that they are not the direct cause. The exclusion from the safeguard measure is a significant achievement for the efforts of the Trade Remedies Authority (Ministry of Industry and Trade) and the Vietnamese Delegation in Geneva. Previously, the Trade Remedies Authority sent a letter to ITAC, requesting that Vietnam be excluded from the safeguard measure, and ITAC committed to carefully considering Vietnam's viewpoint.
This preliminary result creates favorable conditions for Vietnamese enterprises to continue to maintain and develop the export of corrosion-resistant steel products to the SACU bloc in the coming time. This is a key factor helping Vietnamese steel maintain its competitive advantage on the international trade map. However, enterprises and associations still need to continue to closely monitor the developments of the case until a final conclusion is reached.
CK
Source: VITIC/haiquanonline.com.vn
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