VNDirect expects that the gross profit margin of steel companies will soon recover when most of the high-priced inventory has been recorded in the cost of goods sold in the third quarter.
Steel producers have begun to feel the pinch as weakening demand and mouting input costs have dealt a heavy blow to their steel sales. Insiders are calling for favourable policies to lift them out of hardship.
The huge potential market is mainly driven by large investments and favourable tax policies, but the business picture in the third quarter of 2022 of these enterprises is facing many challenges with large losses.
After increasing inventories at the beginning of 2021 to take advantage of price differences to maximise profits, the strategy has now hit steel producers hard as global steel prices plunged at the end of the year.
Enhancing product quality and optimising production cost would help domestic steel producers compete with the cheap products imported from China, Nguyen Van Sua, deputy president of the Viet Nam Steel Association, said.
The Viet Nam Competition Authority said that the Minister of Industry
and Trade had ordered an investigation against imported steel ingots and
steel bars for the application of safeguards.
Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai has asked the Ministry of
Industry and Trade (MoIT) to issue a report on domestic steel producers
that are facing stiff competition from cheap imported steel.
The European Union''s anti-dumping duty on stainless steel cold-rolled
sheet from mainland China and Taiwan has raised concerns that Chinese
steel producers will accelerate their exports to Viet Nam.
Cement and steel consumption could rise 8 to 10 per cent in the first
half of 2014 against the same period last year, after declining in the
past few years.
Steel sale is yet to recover on the local market, despite domestic steel
producers'' efforts to boost consumption coinciding with the start of
the building season, according to the Viet Nam Steel Association (VSA).