Chung Hung Steel Corp (中鴻鋼鐵), which makes steel coils and pipes, yesterday said that US levies of up to 456 percent on steel imports from Vietnam have had a limited effect on the company and Vietnam would remain its largest overseas market this year.
As the US only imposes about 3 percent anti-dumping tariffs on steel imports from Taiwan, there is no need for the company to export goods to the US through Vietnam, it said.
Chung Hung sells to downstream companies, which process the steel further. More than half of the company’s shipments are for overseas markets.
Cumulative revenue in the first five months of the year rose 7.13 percent year-on-year to NT$20.56 billion (US$661.05 million).
Some downstream steelmakers had expected the additional US duties, as Washington officials launched an investigation into Vietnam last year, Chung Hung said.
“Quite a few downstream companies have been exporting their steel products to the US through Japan, instead of Vietnam,” a Chung Hung official told the Taipei Times by telephone.
Some of them are to focus on the expanding market in Vietnam instead, said the official, who asked to remain anonymous.
The US Department of Commerce on Tuesday announced that it was increasing tariffs to up to 456 percent on corrosion-resistant and cold-rolled steel products from Vietnam, if the steel was made in Taiwan or South Korea and then shipped to Vietnam for minor processing before being exported to the US.
The department views the practice of shipping products from Vietnam as a way to circumvent US anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties.
The Chung Hung official said that the effects on the Taiwanese steel industry need to be evaluated further.
“What is certain is that Vietnam is no longer a beneficiary of the US-China trade dispute,” he said. “Nobody knows where the US will strike next.”
Meanwhile, the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday said that manufacturers in the nation should use domestically sourced raw materials to avoid incurring US tariffs.
“The [Vietnamese] Ministry of Industry and Trade has warned local companies about possible moves by importing countries, including the United States, to apply stricter requirements in trade protection cases,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang said in Hanoi.
Vietnamese companies should consider business strategies that include switching to domestic materials, she said.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
FUTURE PLANS: Although the electric vehicle market is getting more competitive, Hon Hai would stick to its goal of seizing a 5 percent share globally, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), a major iPhone assembler and supplier of artificial intelligence (AI) servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s chips, yesterday said it has introduced a rotating chief executive structure as part of the company’s efforts to cultivate future leaders and to enhance corporate governance. The 50-year-old contract electronics maker reported sizable revenue of NT$6.16 trillion (US$189.67 billion) last year. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), has been under the control of one man almost since its inception. A rotating CEO system is a rarity among Taiwanese businesses. Hon Hai has given leaders of the company’s six