Steel imports continue to rise high

VSA Vice President Nguyen Van Sua said a huge volume of steel ingots and finished steel products has been imported into Vietnam in spite of temporary safeguard duties of 23.3% imposed on steel ingots and 14.2% on long steel products on March 22 in the form of additional import duty.

This was attributable to a high demand of the steel industry for semi-finished steel products, including hot-rolled steel, which Vietnam has not been able to produce yet. As a result, the country has to buy around 8-9 million tons of hot-rolled steel annually.

While this challenge would cause pressure on domestic producers, it also encouraged them to improve technological qualifications and management capacity and build brand names, Mr Sua noted.