Thailand’s Department of Foreign Trade in a preliminary ruling imposed 35.67pc anti-dumping duty on cif price of cold-rolled steel sheet and hot-dipped galvanized steel in coils and non-coils imported from China, effective Aug 3.
Thai Commerce authorities initiated the anti-dumping review on CRC imports on Feb 11. In May, Posco Coat Steel (Thailand) submitted a letter requesting consideration of safeguard measures to protect the domestic producers and mitigate the impact of import volumes of these product from China. The company complaint that imports of these products from China have increased considerably and the investigation ruled there is reasonable ground for anti-dumping duties.
The Thai dumping and subsidy commission however exempt three types of cold-rolled steel products, hot-dipped galvanized sheets in coil and non-coil imported from China from this tariff, which are products with of 2.3mm thickness or greater; products used in automobiles manufacturing and auto parts and products used in electrical and electronic equipment manufacturing.
Thailand is a net importer of steel and China and Japan are the major exporters of steel into the country. Chinese steel is priced lower than domestically produced steel. China mainly exports long products to Thailand, while flat steel products are mostly imported from Japan since end-consumers of these materials in Thailand are Japanese companies that required high-grade steel. Most Thai manufacturers of flat steel fail to meet high-quality standards.