Gerdau President Gustavo Werneck said this week in Brazil that he expects the government to soon impose additional barriers on Chinese steel imports, which he argues create unfair competition for Brazil’s steel industry.
New investments in the country, and even the restart of the Barão de Cocais steel plant, located in the state of Minas Gerais, and idled for commercial reasons since 2024, are conditioned to the establishment of such barriers, Werneck said.
According to analysts, Werneck refers to rumors that the government will add HRC to the antidumping duties applied in February to imports of CRC and coated flat products from China.
Werneck made these remarks during a ceremony celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Ouro Branco plant, the group’s largest plant, also located in Minas Gerais state.
With a production capacity of 4.5 million mt of crude steel per year, Ouro Branco produces a wide array of long and flat products, including HRC, structural beams, wire rod and rebars, responding for more than 10 percent of the steel produced in Brazil, and serving sectors like civil construction, automotive, agriculture, energy and shipbuilding.
