Cold rollers in Thailand insist on importing their hot rolled steel
In relation to the recently implemented anti-dumping duties in
Thailand on the imports of hot rolled steel sheets, the cold rollers such as TCR (Thai Cold Rolled Steel Sheet) and SUS (Siam United Steel) in the country objected to decision and asked for exemptions to be granted.
TCR and SUS are companies with Japanese origins and are willing to import their hot rolled steel sheet for cold rolling from
Japan, and claim that no equivalent material in
Thailand is currently produced to meet their requirements.
As a result of the 10-days duration given to TCR and SUS expired without reaching an agreement over the dispute on the anti-dumping duties on HR steel imports with
Thailand's biggest hot rolled steel producer Sahaviriya Steel Industry Plc (SSI). This situation might lead to raw material shortage for TCR and SUS as from next month.
Important Japanese steel producer JFE Steel Corp, holding shares in both TCR and SUS, backed up these companies' requirement for imported HR steel sheet as the SSI is not in a position to produce all types of hot rolled steel as it claims so. However SSI states that it is ready to go through the tests in order to prove its products do comply with the specific requirements of these cold rollers to meet the needs of downstream manufacturers, that are namely
automotive and home appliance makers.
It appears that the negotiations will continue until some sort of settlement is reached, because TCR and SUS are running at low capacity as their inventories are about to finish by the end of June. Therefore the situation needs an immediate clarification.