Four long steel associations in Thailand (the Standard Long Steel Product Trade Association, the EAF Long Product Steel Producer Association, the Association of Thai Steel Industries and the Thai Steel Wire Rod Trade Association) have submitted a petition to the Thai government, asking for help to promote local steel in infrastructure projects and to impose anti-circumvention duties on some imports.
The associations have called for increase in local longs use up to a share of 90 percent in state infrastructure projects such as the high-speed rail network linking three airports, the Thai-Chinese high-speed railway project, mass transit projects, the U-tapao airport extension and the third-phase development of Laem Chabang and Map Ta Phut seaports.
Pravit Horungruang, president of the Standard Long Steel Product Trade Association, stated that long steel manufacturers are forced to work only at 38 present of combined production capacity, which is 13 million mt per year. "We expect competition to become more drastic over the next 2-3 years when Chinese manufacturers who have already established factories, with a total capacity of 2 million mt kick off operations," Pravit Horungruang said. As a result, the associations also asked Thailand’s Commerce Ministry to implement anti-circumvention duties on imported steel.
In the January-June period this year, domestic production of long steel in Thailand dropped by nine percent year on year to 2.6 million mt, whereas imports added 5.6 percent year on year to 1.3 million mt.
