Vietnamese firm wins anti-dumping steel lawsuit in Australia

A year-long Australian investigation into steel rods imported from Vietnam has concluded that there had been no breach of anti-dumping policies, the Vietnam Steel Association (VSA) said on Wednesday.

The Australian Anti-Dumping Commission (ADC) released the results of the investigation on Monday, concluding a lawsuit filed against Vietnam, Indonesia and South Korea by an Australian firm.

According to the ADC’s report, the dumping rate of steel rods in coil exported to Australia by Hoa Phat Group, the Vietnamese defendant, was only 1.3 percent, lower than the maximum legal threshold of 2 percent. Thus, the ruling was in Vietnam’s favor and the ADC had decided to end the investigation, TuoiTre reported.

The investigation also found there had been no interference from the Vietnamese government in the production of steel rods, and therefore they held no unfair advantage.

The ADC’s anti-dumping case and subsequent inspection was launched last June following a complaint lodged by OneSteel Manufacturing Pty Ltd, a steel core manufacturer in Australia. The firm said that goods were being exported to Australia at prices less than their normal value, and that dumping had damaged the Australian industry through loss of sales, market share and profits.

Steel products from Indonesia, Taiwan and Turkey have also been subject to anti-dumping investigations in Australia, and both Indonesia and Turkey were slapped with anti-dumping taxes in 2015 for a year, while the same products from China were hit with a tariff in April 2016.

In 2017, Hoa Phat Group exported 36,000 tons of steel rods and beams to Australia.