Mexico's economy minister, Ildefonso Guajardo, has discarded new anti-dumping (AD) measures on imported steel, according to media reports.
The minister's comments follow a recent claim by Altos Hornos de Mexico (AHMSA) that it could start importing cheap slab and closing mines and furnaces if the government doesn't act to stop imported steel, mainly from China.
According to media reports, the minister said Mexico will be more cautious when applying AD duties on foreign steel, as such measures usually affect all the value chain.
"The substitution of imports won't be a 70's policy of increasing [the number of] duties, because we know it doesn't work," Guajardo told local media during a Ternium's awards event in Nuevo Leon, Mexico.
Regarding the massive layoffs that have hit some of Mexico's largest steel companies, such as AHMSA and Deacero, the minister said that there have been several restrictions in the nation's domestic market.
"We need to have an equilibrium in issues like these to not [let them to] affect the [steel] plants, neither to allow a transfer of inefficiencies and costs to the final consumer," he said.
Ternium Mexico's president, Máximo Vedoya, showed a different opinion and reiterated the problem Mexico's steel industry is currently facing.
"There's a global oversupply of 400 million mt that displace the [use] of the nation's industry, with prices that are bellow the costs through practices such as subsidies and the artificial devaluation of currency," the Ternium executive said.