The EC has concluded preliminarily that the EU hot-rolled coil industry has suffered significant injury, as reflected in factors such as market share, price impact, profits, investment and employment...

The Department of Trade Defense, Ministry of Industry and Trade said that the European Commission (EC) has just issued a notice applying temporary anti-dumping measures on some hot-rolled steel products imported from Egypt, Japan and Vietnam into the European Union (EU). 

The investigation was initiated on 8 August 2024. The plaintiff is the European Steel Association. The goods under investigation are hot-rolled steel (products in headings 7208, 7211, 7225, 7226).

Among these, some goods are excluded: Grain-oriented stainless steel or silicon electrical steel; tool steel and special high-hardness tool steel; stainless steel in coil form, without relief pattern, with a thickness greater than 10 mm and a width of 600 mm or more; and steel not in coil form, without relief pattern, with a thickness of 4.75 mm or more but not exceeding 10 mm and a width of 2050 mm or more.

The anti-dumping investigation period is from April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024, while the injury investigation period is from January 1, 2021 to March 31, 2024.

Based on business data and the implementation of regulatory adjustments, the EC concluded that the preliminary dumping margin for Vietnamese businesses is from 0% to 12.1%. 

The EC concluded preliminarily that the EU hot-rolled coil industry has suffered material injury, as measured by market share, price impact, profits, investment and employment.

Regarding the plaintiff's allegation that the Government's export tax policy has reduced the prices of iron ore and coal - input materials for the production of hot-rolled steel (accounting for 30-40% and 26-39% of the cost of producing hot-rolled steel, respectively), creating an advantage for dumped export goods to the EU, the EC preliminarily concluded that there was insufficient evidence for this allegation.

During the investigation period, Vietnamese companies imported iron ore and coking coal from many countries around the world because domestic raw materials were not guaranteed in terms of quantity and quality. Therefore, the price of input materials did not depend on the domestic raw material market.

The Trade Defense Department recommends that the Vietnam Steel Association (VSA), enterprises producing and exporting investigated goods carefully study the attached documents, continue to fully cooperate with the EC during the investigation process and regularly coordinate and provide information to receive timely support from the Trade Defense Department.

Source: VN Economy