China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼), the nation’s largest steelmaker, yesterday announced that it was preparing to lodge anti-dumping lawsuits against Chinese and South Korean peers to safeguard its interests.
This would be the first anti-dumping lawsuit filed by local steelmakers after the EU, the US and India imposed putative tariffs on steel imports from the world’s major steelmakers including those from China and Taiwan to protect their steel industry.
“China Steel is collecting information to file anti-dumping complaints at a proper time in order to prevent unfair competition from hurting local steelmakers’ interests,” China Steel spokesperson Lin Horng-nan (林弘男) said in a statement.
“Certain companies have exported massive quantities of steel products to Taiwan at rates that are lower than market prices,” the statement said.
Local steelmakers are facing a double whammy of anti-dumping duties on Taiwanese exports and unfair competition from foreign steelmakers at home market, Lin said.
The latest in a slew of anti-dumping tariffs impositions, China Steel is required to pay 2.5 percent higher tariffs on its exports to India, which could cut China Steel’s exports by US$122 million, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said this month.
China Steel is expected to file the anti-dumping complaint to the International Trade Commission by the end of next month at the latest. The company is planning to request the commission to levy anti-dumping tariffs on steel plates made by Chinese and South Korean firms, Chinese-language the Economic Daily News reported yesterday. Lin could not be reached for comment by the time the newspaper went to press.
South Korean, Chinese, Indonesian and Indian companies were dumping their steel products to Taiwan due to a surplus in supply, as Taiwan had gradually reduced tariffs on most steel products to zero after becoming a member of the WTO, the report said.
The companies sold steel plates, hot-rolled sheets and steel bars with a discount of US$160 per tonne, the report said.
China heavily subsidizes its steel industry, which has prompted the EU and the US to levy anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese steelmakers due to unfair business practices, it said.
On Wednesday, China Steel reported that its revenue has dropped 26.46 percent to NT$22.63 billion (US$688.8 million) from a year earlier. In the first eight months of this year, year-on-year cumulative revenues fell 18.32 percent to NT$200.94 billion, the company said.
China Steel shares were down 0.77 percent to NT$19.3 yesterday in Taipei trading, extending this year’s loss to 26.05 percent.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group