EC notifies Vietnam of HRC dumping complaint

The European Commission said it has notified Vietnam that it has received a complaint for the initiation of an anti-dumping investigation into imports of hot-rolled coils (HRC).

The commission did not identify who filed the complaint against Vietnam.

Should a probe be launched, the commission may decide to pick a sample of exporters to investigate because of the large number of producers from Vietnam.

Market participants have expected an EU investigation into Vietnamese HRC imports since volumes started picking up. Last year Vietnamese imports of HRC into the EU rose to 1.13mn t, from 400,000t in 2022. Vietnam has frequently been the lowest-priced supplier on the market, targeting primarily large buyers and pure commodity grade coils. Since the launch of the Argus HRC cif Italy origin differentials earlier this year, Vietnam has traded at a discount.

There is talk that an investigation into Vietnamese hot-dip galvanised (HDG) could be launched too, and a probe into HRC imports from major ‘other countries' such as Taiwan, Japan and Egypt..

Vietnam itself has this week launched a dumping investigation on imports of HRC from China and India and previously into HDG from China.

By Lora Stoyanova