Over the past week, Taiwan’s import scrap market has moved down slightly, though market sources interpreted these small declines as a relative stability of prices. Due to the holiday which started yesterday, April 3, in Taiwan, the domestic rebar market has been quiet, market sources reported. A source from Taiwan said, “Due to Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, next week we expect the stock market to fall further and create chaos.” Trump announced reciprocal tariffs on April 2, targeting Taiwan also, hitting it with 32 percent duties. Although steel and aluminium are not included in the reciprocal tariffs and semiconductors were left out for Taiwan, the duty rate is far higher than the base duty announced at 10 percent. Automatic data processing equipment and integrated circuits were Taiwan’s top two exports to the US in 2024. As reported by Reuters, “Taiwan said on Thursday that US tariffs levied on the island were unreasonable and it would discuss them with Washington, partly blaming US tech curbs on China in President Donald Trump's first term for driving the trade imbalance.”
The major Taiwanese producer Feng Hsin has lowered its domestic rebar prices over the past week by another TWD 200/mt to TWD 17,500/mt ($530/mt) ex-works, with dollar-based prices down by $4/mt taking the exchange rate into account.
Offers for ex-US HMS I/II (80:20) scrap in containers to Taiwan have moved down by $3/mt this week, from the range of $315-320/mt CFR to $312-320/mt. Actual deal prices have also moved down, by $3-5/mt to $310-312/mt CFR.
Offers shared for Japanese H1/2 (50:50) scrap bulk have remained limited this week, with the offer prices at around $330/mt CFR, down by $5/mt. No deals were done this week.
Feng Hsin has kept its scrap procurement prices stable week on week at TWD 9,900/mt ($300/mt) delivered, up by $1/mt on US dollar basis. Market sources report that import scrap prices have relatively remained stable, while Japanese scrap is not affordable for Taiwan.
$1 = TWD 33.02