After a drop of approximately US$17/mt over the course of the last two weeks, Mexican domestic cold rolled coil (CRC) prices now stand at US$760/mt ex-mill. As with the rest of the world, domestic CRC prices maintain a downtrend, but the Mexican market faces additional pressures such as the influx of imported CRC with dumped prices from countries that have no trade agreement with Mexico.
However, Mexico announced last week that it will impose provisional antidumping duties on imports of CRC from South Korea; the dumping investigation concluded that the entry of CRC at dumped prices presented consequent damages to the local industry.
The fees range from 6.45 percent for imports from Hyundai and up to 60.40 percent for the steelmaker POSCO and to the rest of the Asian country's export, according to the Ministry of Economy's resolution published in the Official Journal.
The measure, which took effect last week, was requested by Ternium Mexico, who invested US$300 million in its new plant Pesquería, Nuevo León, to produce special steels for the automotive sector.