A production line at a Hoa Sen plant. – Photo Courtesy Hoa Sen Group
Steel maker Hoa Sen Group has said its business will not be affected by the US Department of Commerces preliminary ruling on the circumvention inquiries it made into Vietnamese cold-rolled steel and corrosion-resistant steel exports.
In a release late on Wednesday, the companys deputy general director, Vu Van Thanh, said: “Hoa Sen used materials from Viet Nam or materials which did not originate in Taiwan or RoK for making products to export to the US.”
His company has closely co-operated with the department by supplying all documents about the materials origin, he said.
“In recent years the company has been improving product quality to meet all the requirements applied by [the department] and so we have exported big volumes to this market.”
Hoa Sen accounted for 37 per cent of Viet Nams output of corrosion-resistant steel last year.
Its strategy is to simultaneously develop both its domestic and export markets and has 563 retail shops around the country.
Earlier this month the US Department of Commerce (DOC) issued preliminary conclusions in the anti-dumping and countervailing duty investigation into Viet Nam's cold-rolled steel and corrosion-resistant steel using raw materials imported from Taiwan and South Korea.
The US has slapped anti-dumping and anti-subsidy taxes on Taiwan and South Korea.
Based on preliminary conclusions, it will temporarily waive tax on cold-rolled steel and corrosion-resistant steel products imported from Viet Nam through the collection of escrow deposits.
Le Trieu Dung, director of the Ministry of Industry and Trades department of trade protection, was quoted on https://customsnews.vn as saying the case was initiated by the US in August 2018.
The Ministry, the Vietnam Steel Association and businesses have provided information for the US investigation, he said.
The DOC has issued a preliminary conclusion imposing 456 per cent tax on Vietnamese cold-rolled steel and corrosion-resistant steel, but if it finds the steel was produced using materials from Viet Nam and other countries and territories, no tax would be imposed, he added. – VNS