Vietnam slaps anti-dumping duties on Chinese, Taiwanese steel

By Dat Nguyen October 25, 2019 | 03:32 am PT

A man checks steel quality at a steel mill in the northern Hai Duong Province. Photo by Reuters/Kham.

Vietnam has issued another five-year anti-dumping duties on steel from China, Taiwan, Malaysia and Indonesia, finding that they hurt local production.

The duties will be effective from this Saturday until October 26, 2023, with the highest tariff of 37.29 percent on steel from Taiwan, according to a statement released by the Ministry of Industry and Trade Thursday.

Duties on steel from China will be taxed 17.94-31.85 percent, that from Malaysia, 11.09-22.69 percent, and Indonesia, 10.91-25.06 percent.

The decision was made after the trade ministry conducted a year-long investigation from October 2018.

Vietnam had already slapped five-year duties from October 2014 on steel from the four economies, which helped local production recover.

However, the gain proved short lived, and the domestic industry went into decline again, the ministry said. In the October 2018-2019 period, sales of local manufacturers fell 5 percent year-on-year.

Locally produced steel accounted for around 43 percent of the market in the period, with imported steel accounted for the remaining 57 percent.

Vietnam imported $7.3 billion worth of iron and steel in the first nine months this year, down 3.3 percent year-on-year, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).