According to the numbers released by Vietnam Steel Association (VSA), country’s steel production and consumption have shown strong growth in the first four months starting from Jan-Apr’18.
Vietnam’s steel output during the first four months of 2018 reached 3.21 MnT, an increase of 8.8% against the corresponding period of the previous year whereas country’s steel consumption surged by 12.9% y-o-y basis and stood at 3.07 MnT during Jan-Apr’18.
The steel exports of Vietnam also witnessed positive results in first three months of 2018 as the value of steel exports exceeded USD 1 billion.
Industry experts in Vietnam believe that although the industry imports many raw materials such as steel scrap, iron ore, coke, graphite electrode for domestic steel production, Vietnam’s domestic steel producers actively produced a part of the raw materials in-house in order to reduce their dependence on import. For instance, Vietnam’s steel giant Formosa produced some 250,000 tonnes of hot-rolled steel per month, reducing the import pressure on enterprises.
Subsequently, country’s steel imports reduced by 24.3% Y-o-Y basis to 4.27 MnT in the first four months of this year, including 1.16 MnT in April, down by 19.3%.
Although Vietnam’s steel exports have increased this year, the same would continue to suffer pressures from trade protection measures adopted by other countries. Most large import markets such as the U.S. and the EU (European Union) have initiated investigations and applied tariff as a tool for trade protection to protect the domestic market, creating difficulties for exporters.
In domestic front, the investment activities have picked up in the country and steel demand is expected is to pick up further in the coming months of 2018.
VSA has projected an estimated growth rate of 20 to 22% y-o-y basis in country’s steel production this year. The production growth rate is estimated to reach 10% for construction steel, 154% for hot rolled steel, 5% for cold rolled steel, and 15% for welded-steel pipes.
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