Imported scrap market activities remain gloomy at the beginning of the week, following the stable sentiment and market participants being out of the market due to holidays.
Imported scrap offers were mostly high as both suppliers and buyers were out of the market and showing less interest due to ongoing holidays.
- Offers for Japanese bulk H2 scrap surged to $430-435/t CFR Vietnam, mostly unchanged w-o-w.
- Bulk offers for the mix of HMS 1&2 (80:20) and shredded scrap from the US were heard at $450/t CFR, unchanged w-o-w.
The country’s economy is growing rapidly, which creates an attractive retail outlook. By 2025, the latter will be the third largest economy in Southeast Asia, following Indonesia and Thailand.
Further, market experts believe that the domestic retail market has the opportunity to grow strongly in 2023. For the steel industry, 2022 was a challenging year, that is, the domestic consumption market declined, the price of steel production materials changed complicatedly, and many steel enterprises fell into a difficult situation, losses, as per Vietnam Steel Association (VSA).
- Finished steel production reached 2.135 mnt in December’22, up 16.95% compared to November 2022 but down 21.3 % over the same period in 2021.
- Sales of all kinds of steel reached 2.159 mnt in December, up 11.17 % over the previous month but down 13.6% over the same period.
- Finished steel production in 2022 reached 29.339 mnt, down 11.9 % over the same period in 2021.
- Sales of finished steel reached 27.3 mnt, down 7.2 % over the same period in 2021, of which, exports reached 6.28 mnt, down 19.1 % over the same period last year.
Thailand market overview: Thailand’s scrap prices firm up. Central America-origin HMS 1&2 (70:30) stands at $380/t CFR, while shredded offers were at $425-428/t CFR, unchanged w-o-w. Market experts believe that demand is increasing, and prices may rise further.
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