A probe by the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Commission into alleged anti-dumping activity involving cold-rolled stainless steel products from China and South Korea has found that damage to the local industry “may continue or reoccur due to the suspension of anti-dumping duties,” the commission said in a statement on Friday.
The probe found that with duties ranging from 26.53 percent to 38.11 percent on such products from 2013 to last year, the volume of cheap imports was lower, while the market share of locally made cold-rolled stainless steel products was slightly higher, the commission said.
“However, due to shrinking domestic demand and large fluctuations in nickel prices in recent years, domestic shipments have not grown and local companies reported losses sometimes,” the commission said. “The overall industry is still in an unstable state of operation.”
The investigation came after the five-year duties on selected cold-rolled stainless steel products, including steel coils and steel plates, from China and South Korea ended last year.
Yieh United Steel Corp (燁聯鋼鐵) and Tang Eng Iron Works Corp (唐榮鐵工廠) lobbied the Ministry of Finance to continue the duties, which would apply retroactively to Aug. 15 last year if it concludes that cheap imports have affected competition in Taiwan.
“At present, there is a serious glut in China and South Korea,” the commission said.
“They are still developing foreign markets and have not given up the export markets, despite the threat of remedy measures,” it said.
The commission warned that any suspension of anti-dumping duties on Chinese and South Korean products would likely see firms in the two resume dumping in Taiwan amid the US-China trade dispute, which has seen restrictions placed on steel trade.
The commission said it would send the results of its probe to the finance ministry for further consideration.
The finance ministry should — within 70 days of receiving the notice — submit the case to the Tariff Commission to determine whether anti-dumping duties should be reimposed.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)