Chinese steel mills retaliating with counter measures for imports

Friday, 06 Nov 2009

It is reported that China Iron & Steel Association is now organizing Chinese major steel mills to take counter-measures against the flood in hot rolled steel products and silicon steel products imports from the US, Russia and EU, source learnt from CISA on November 4th.

An official from International Economic and Trading Corporation, WISCO said "We have filed a petition to the Ministry of Commerce applying for anti-dumping and countervailing investigations against the silicon steel imports from Russia and the US. The company believes they possess ample evidences that resources from those countries are sold under the normal prices and have caused actual damages to Chinese industry.”

Overseas steelmakers have largely increased their exports to China this year especially for those of low grade products, causing evident injure among Chinese steelmakers.

The statistics of CISA show during January to September, the imports of common carbon hot rolled coil and sheet were 2.7433 million tonnes up by 259%YoY the imports of billet were 3.8608 million tonnes up by 2584%YoY, the imports of pig iron ore were 2.7919 million tonnes up by 993%YoY.

Mr Luo Binsheng the vice secretary of CISA said "We have noticed that some products are sold in China at 30% lower than the normal prices."

It said that CISA has proposed the government to roll out regulations in counter-measures against surging steel imports. Insiders said "At the meanwhile, China's responsive measures against international trade protectionism are not strong enough."

During January to September, China net crude steel exports were 1.3716 million tonnes while the exports in the same period of last year were 39.469 million tonnes. The exports of steel products in January to September 2009 decreased by 68.26%, while that of imports increased by 36.92% and the situation is unlikely to see evident improvement in the rest of this year.

(Sourced from MySteel.net)
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