Malaysia has begun a review and an antidumping investigation into imports of cold-rolled steel products from Vietnam and Indonesia, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry said July 28.
The review will look into imports of cold-rolled coils of alloy and non-alloy steel from Vietnam, China and South Korea, which were slapped with antidumping duties from May 8, 2019 to May 23, 2020. The tariffs on the three countries ranged from nil to 42.08%.
Mycron Steel CRC asked for the review, and after looking at its evidence, the ministry said the "dumping margin of the subject merchandise from Vietnam had substantially changed and decided to initiate an administrative review on antidumping duties imposed on imports of the subject merchandise from Vietnam."
For the probe, it covers cold-rolled stainless steel in coils, sheets or any other form sent from Indonesia and Vietnam, and resulted from a petition by Bahru Stainless Steel who alleged that the imports "are being dumped into Malaysia at a price much lower than the selling price in the domestic market of the alleged countries and this is causing material injury to the domestic industry in Malaysia."
A preliminary determination for the review will be decided within 180 days from the starting date, while the results of the antidumping probe will be known within 120 days from the start.
The latest antidumping investigation comes after Malaysia started, in late March 2020, a similar probe into coated flat-rolled steel products from China, South Korea and Vietnam.
In 2019, Malaysia imported an estimated 4.91 million mt of flat steel, down from 5.10 million mt in 2018, while domestic demand for the same products also fell to 4.27 million mt in 2019 from 4.42 million mt in 2018, data from the Malaysian Iron & Steel Industry Federation showed.
-- Clement Choo
Source : Steel Business Briefing
