Mexican longs producer Deacero suspended shipments of steel to Chile, following a decision by the Chilean government to impose an ad-valorem, provisional anti-dumping (AD) duty of 11 percent on Mexican rebar imports.
“We suspended almost all steel shipments [to Chile.] What we’re selling locally is the inventory distributors had,” German Casa, Deacero’s exports manager for Latin America, told Chile’s Pulso.
According to the executive, Deacero’s last shipment of steel to Chile was about two months ago. “With a duty like the one we have, it is actually very difficult to trade [the product],” he said.
Casa said Deacero could potentially abandon the Chilean market, which would negatively affect domestic distributors that rely on Deacero to provide Mexican rebar in the country.
However, Rafael Rubio, Alacero’s general manager, recently told SteelOrbis that “Mexico isn’t the only country that exports rebar to Chile.”
“If the problem was just Mexico, then you could say, ‘oh, I’ve solved my problem’,” he said in an exclusive interview at the Alacero conference.
“But if you let Mexico out, then you have Turkey, Europe, Japan and China. What we as a regional association want is an equal and fair competition,” he added.