Vietnam steel imports from China shrink

2018-09-07 10:02:36

Vietnamese steel imports fell -11% year-on-year over January-August to 9.3 million tonnes, according to the Vietnam Steel Association (VSA). By value steel imports were up 10.2% y-o-y at $6.7 billion however as prices have increased sharply, Kallanish notes.

In 2017 Vietnam imported 15mt of steel as imports from key suppliers such as China began to fade away. The decline has been in part due to prices and in part due to growing domestic capacity and production. China has only released detailed data for the first quarter, but its exports to Vietnam slumped -46% to 1.33mt. This was driven partly by a -51.3% drop in wide hot rolled coil and sheet exports to 687,498t.

Not all countries have seen shipments to Vietnam fall however. Japanese steel exports to Vietnam over January-July were up 1.5% y-o-y to 1.34mt. Exports to Vietnam from South Korea meanwhile were up 5.1% y-o-y to 1.05mt over January-July.