The EU on Friday imposed tariffs ranging from 9.2 percent to 13 percent as on steel from China used to reinforce concrete, the latest sign of EU unease about overcapacity at Chinese mills.
The duties punish Chinese exporters of high fatigue performance steel concrete reinforcement bars for allegedly selling them in the EU below cost, a practice known as dumping. The targeted companies include Jiangyin Xicheng Steel Co (江陰西城鋼鐵), Jiangsu Yonggang Group Co (江蘇永鋼集團) and Zhangjiagang Shatai Steel Co (張家港沙景鋼鐵).
EU-based competitors, including the Celsa and Riva groups, suffered “material injury” as a result of dumped imports from China, the European Commission, the 28-nation bloc’s executive arm in Brussels, said in the Official Journal.
The duties, which took effect on Saturday, are for six months and may be prolonged for five years.
The anti-dumping duties are the preliminary outcome of an inquiry that the commission opened in April last year. The probe stemmed from a dumping complaint by European steel industry group Eurofer on behalf of producers that account for more than a quarter of the EU’s output of high-fatigue performance steel concrete reinforcement bars — also called HFP rebars and known for their resilience.
Chinese exporters expanded their share of the EU market for HFP rebars to almost 36 percent in the 12 months through March last year from 7.9 percent in 2013 and zero in previous years, the commission said on Friday.
With EU anti-dumping protection already in force against China on goods ranging from stainless steel and electrical steel to wire rod and steel wires, the new measures reflect European concerns that Chinese mills have the capacity to flood world markets.
China, which accounts for about half of global steel production and posted its slowest economic growth in more than two decades last year, on Sunday last week pledged steel-capacity cuts, as several steel mills are grappling with widening losses.
Medium and large-sized mills that are members of the China Iron & Steel Association swung to a total loss of 64.5 billion yuan (US$9.8 billion) last year, the group said on Friday in a statement.
“Lower output is not enough to offset the decrease in demand as the market is still oversupplied,” the statement said. “The steel sector is faced with tight cash flow and difficulty in operation as steel prices reached the lowest on record while losses at mills widened.”
Signs of corporate difficulties are mounting as at least six Chinese steel mills issued loss warnings on Friday.
Angang Steel Co (鞍鋼), China’s fourth-biggest steel mill by production, said it expects to swing to a loss of about 4.38 billion yuan for last year, compared with a net profit of 928 million yuan in 2014.
Wuhan Iron & Steel Co (武漢鋼鐵), the nation’s fifth-largest mill, expects losses for last year to reach 6.8 billion yuan, Maanshan Iron & Steel Co (馬鞍山鋼鐵) expects a net loss of 4.82 billion yuan, while Beijing Shougang Co (北京首鋼) said its losses will be at least 800 million yuan.
FALLING BEHIND: Samsung shares have declined more than 20 percent this year, as the world’s largest chipmaker struggles in key markets and plays catch-up to rival SK Hynix Samsung Electronics Co is laying off workers in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand as part of a plan to reduce its global headcount by thousands of jobs, sources familiar with the situation said. The layoffs could affect about 10 percent of its workforces in those markets, although the numbers for each subsidiary might vary, said one of the sources, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Job cuts are planned for other overseas subsidiaries and could reach 10 percent in certain markets, the source said. The South Korean company has about 147,000 in staff overseas, more than half
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
RSS