China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼), the nation’s largest steelmaker, is considering an anti-dumping complaint over cheap steel imports from South Korea, Japan, China and India, while requesting the government to impose stricter controls on Chinese imports because of quality concerns.
China Steel, based in Siaogang District (小港), Greater Kaohsiung, said in an e-mailed statement issued on Tuesday that a recent influx of cheap steel imports had created a “chaotic” domestic market and that this “unfair trade practice” has depressed domestic steel prices.
In order to compete with the cheap imports, China Steel said it had been forced to lower domestic steel prices by a large amount for third-quarter deliveries, even though the company’s raw material costs would remain high in the quarter.
China Steel has cut domestic steel contract prices by about 5.88 percent for July-to-September shipments and the falling prices have had an impact on the company’s profitability last month.
In a separate statement issued on Tuesday, China Steel said its unaudited pretax profit was NT$2.07 billion last month, down 29.19 percent from the previous month, on revenue of NT$20.68 billion, down 3.15 percent from June.
The company — which normally sells about 70 percent of its products domestically — also saw its domestic shipments drop to 514,892 tonnes, or 67.47 percent of the total last month, from 547,462 tonnes, or 70.08 percent, in June, company data showed.
“China Steel is actively collecting relevant information and it is considering lodging an anti-dumping complaint against those cheap imports to maintain order in the domestic market and protect the interests of Taiwanese steelmakers,” the company said.
The company said its preliminary investigation revealed that South Korean companies had dumped steel plates and cold-rolled coils in Taiwan. Japanese firms had dumped electrical steel, Chinese companies boron-added steel plates and cold-rolled coils, and Indian firms steel plates, it said.
China Steel said these imported products were sold at levels well below market prices, causing Taiwan’s steelmakers to face losses amid unfair competition.
“China Steel has considered hiring lawyers to conduct an investigation into these imports,” the company said in the statement.
Meanwhile, China Steel said cheap boron-added steel plates imported from China had resulted in unfair competition in many countries, prompting Vietnam to slap a 10 percent import tax on these items beginning on Aug. 25.
The low-priced boron-added steel from China has also created safety concerns, as many low-quality products had been used in construction and public infrastructure projects, the company said.
“China Steel suggests that the government reinstate strict controls on steel plate imports from China, as well as a stricter quality standard for all imported steel plates to ensure the safety of the nation’s construction and public infrastructure projects,” it said.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San