Malaysia: Steel players support across-the-board tax on imports

11/04/2013 12:00 - 424 Views

PETALING JAYA (April 8, 2013): The steel manufacturing industry has come out in support of a proposal to implement an across-the-board tax on fabricated steel imports in order to curb dumping.

The Malaysia Steel Association (MSA) and the Malaysian Iron and Steel Industry Federation (Misif) in a joint statement yesterday said they agreed with the concerns shared by Eversendai Bhd executive chairman and group managing director Datuk A.K. Nathan on the dumping of fabricated steel.

"(Nathan) has rightly pointed out that the biggest threat and problem is steel materials from China into Malaysia are entering at very low prices, which is possible due to the numerous incentives given to the Chinese exporters by their government," said MSA and Misif.

They also said that there is excess of steel production globally due to the world economic slowdown, which resulted in surging steel imports from China at low prices.

"Many Asean members have managed to mitigate the dumping effects through various trade remedies such as imposing anti-dumping duties and safeguard measures on imported steel products, and using non-tariff barriers such as industrial standards and import procedures to deter imports," they added.

Nathan had on March 28, 2013 told SunBiz that the move by the government to impose duties of between 3.03% and 25.2% on steel wire rods from selected companies out of China, Indonesia and South Korea was insufficient.

He had said that the price difference between fabricated steel from China could be as much as 20%, when compared with locals, and a tax of anything below 20% would therefore be rendered ineffective.

MSA and Misif also said local steel mills have written to the authorities for immediate and stringent action against dumping.

"Dumping not only threatens the domestic steel industry, but also poses serious quality and safety issues given our associations' concerns over some of the sub-quality steel products being imported for manufacturing end products locally."

8 April 2013 - 05:37am

By Pauline Wong

Source: thesundaily.my