China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼), the nation’s biggest steelmaker, yesterday hiked prices for major steel products for a second straight month for domestic deliveries next month, but held prices steady for next quarter’s shipments as demand and supply start to rebalance during the high season.
The Kaohsiung-based steelmaker raised the prices of regular hot-rolled steel plates, steel coils and cold-rolled coils by NT$500 (US$16.61) per tonne, while leaving the prices unchanged for other steel items used in construction, PCs and home appliances, a company statement showed.
The price increases bode well for the steelmaker to improve its profitability after falling into the red since April amid slumping demand. CSC accumulated NT$2.41 billion in losses in the first seven months of this year.
Photo courtesy of China Steel Corp
“As the industry enters its hot season in the fourth quarter, we see that customers’ inventory digestion is approaching an end. Demand and supply are moving toward balance again,” the company said. “Overall, the steel industry is stabilizing and advancing.”
As some local customers such as bolts and nuts producers are struggling to receive new orders, CSC said it would keep quarterly price quotes unchanged for domestic deliveries next quarter.
About 64 percent of its steel shipments go to local customers, it said.
CSC said business investment sentiment is improving as US tariff uncertainties ease and economic prospects become clearer.
The government’s statistics agency upgraded Taiwan’s GDP growth forecast to 4.45 percent for this year on robust exports and better private consumption, it said.
CSC’s price hikes are in line with stabilizing steel prices in the US and mild price increases for hot-rolled steel in the EU, backed by recovering demand following a summer break and import curbs, it said.
In Asia, China’s Baoshan Iron & Steel Co (寶鋼) retained steel plate prices unchanged for next month as supply pressure mounted last month, while Vietnam’s Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Corp (台塑河靜鋼鐵興業) hiked hot-rolled steel prices for a second consecutive month, CSC said.
CSC attributed the gradual improvement in global steel prices to uptrends in raw material costs, with iron ore rising to more than US$105 per tonne and coking coal climbing to between US$185 and US$190 per tonne.
NO BREAKTHROUGH? More substantial ‘deliverables,’ such as tariff reductions, would likely be saved for a meeting between Trump and Xi later this year, a trade expert said China launched two probes targeting the US semiconductor sector on Saturday ahead of talks between the two nations in Spain this week on trade, national security and the ownership of social media platform TikTok. China’s Ministry of Commerce announced an anti-dumping investigation into certain analog integrated circuits (ICs) imported from the US. The investigation is to target some commodity interface ICs and gate driver ICs, which are commonly made by US companies such as Texas Instruments Inc and ON Semiconductor Corp. The ministry also announced an anti-discrimination probe into US measures against China’s chip sector. US measures such as export curbs and tariffs
The US on Friday penalized two Chinese firms that acquired US chipmaking equipment for China’s top chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯國際), including them among 32 entities that were added to the US Department of Commerce’s restricted trade list, a US government posting showed. Twenty-three of the 32 are in China. GMC Semiconductor Technology (Wuxi) Co (吉姆西半導體科技) and Jicun Semiconductor Technology (Shanghai) Co (吉存半導體科技) were placed on the list, formally known as the Entity List, for acquiring equipment for SMIC Northern Integrated Circuit Manufacturing (Beijing) Corp (中芯北方積體電路) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International (Beijing) Corp (中芯北京), the US Federal Register posting said. The
India’s ban of online money-based games could drive addicts to unregulated apps and offshore platforms that pose new financial and social risks, fantasy-sports gaming experts say. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government banned real-money online games late last month, citing financial losses and addiction, leading to a shutdown of many apps offering paid fantasy cricket, rummy and poker games. “Many will move to offshore platforms, because of the addictive nature — they will find alternate means to get that dopamine hit,” said Viren Hemrajani, a Mumbai-based fantasy cricket analyst. “It [also] leads to fraud and scams, because everything is now
MORTGAGE WORRIES: About 34% of respondents to a survey said they would approach multiple lenders to pay for a home, while 29.2% said they would ask family for help New housing projects in Taiwan’s six special municipalities, as well as Hsinchu city and county, are projected to total NT$710.65 billion (US$23.61 billion) in the upcoming fall sales season, a record 30 percent decrease from a year earlier, as tighter mortgage rules prompt developers to pull back, property listing platform 591.com (591新建案) said yesterday. The number of projects has also fallen to 312, a more than 20 percent decrease year-on-year, underscoring weakening sentiment and momentum amid lingering policy and financing headwinds. New Taipei City and Taoyuan bucked the downturn in project value, while Taipei, Hsinchu city and county, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung
RSS