Vietnam’s steel sector is grappling with mounting challenges, including a rising volume of Chinese steel exports, domestic oversupply and global trade barriers, experts warn.

Vietnam plans to develop green and energy-saving steel products and increase the market share of domestically produced steel to gradually replace imported products.

With bright signs seen in the last months of 2023, many experts predicted that the domestic steel sector can recover in 2024.

The leading steel manufacturer Hoa Phat Group sold nearly 457,000 tonnes of steel in April, of which the volume of hot-rolled coil product reached 239,000 tonnes, the highest since the beginning of the year.

The high prices of raw materials have caused domestic steel companies to increase selling prices many times to compensate for production costs and reduce losses.

Vietnam’s largest steel maker Hoa Phat Group said it has received export orders of 720,000 tonnes of construction steel in total for delivery between now and May.

Steel enterprises have boosted exports while facing difficulties in domestic consumption due to the COVID-19 outbreak, according to the Vietnam Steel Association (VSA).

Construction enterprises have reported divergence in the first half of 2021 as a sharp increase in raw material prices has put them under pressure.

Vietnamese steel producer Hoa Phat Group will launch its Hoa Phat Dung Quat 2 iron and steel factory project in early 2022 with a capacity of 5 million tonnes per year, focusing on hot rolled coil (HRC) production using latest technology.

The Hoa Phat Group, Vietnam’s leading steel producer, produced more than 670,000 tonnes of crude steel in January, its highest output to date and representing an annual growth of 67 percent.

The Thai Government has extended the anti-dumping duty on cold-reduced carbon steel, both coiled and uncoiled, from China, Vietnam and Taiwan (China) for the next five years to curb supply from the three markets.

Hoa Phat Group, a leading steel maker in Vietnam, shipped 191,600 tonnes of steel products aboard in the first nine months of 2019, rising 32 percent year on year and accounting for nearly 10 percent of its total sales.

Vietnam’s steel production and consumption in the first half of 2019 recorded respective increases of 7.7 percent and 9.8 percent year-on-year, according to the Vietnam Steel Association (VSA).

The People’s Committee of Hanoi and Fukuoka prefecture of Japan jointly held a conference promoting their agriculture cooperation in Hanoi on June 28.

Despite the imposition of anti-dumping duties on colour-coated steel products by Indonesian authorities, Vietnamese steel producers should not worry about the possibility of losing competitiveness, according to the Vietnam Steel Association (VSA).

The Hong Kong-based Sunwah Group wants to invest in steel production using high, environmentally-friendly technology in Vietnam, said Chairman Jonathan Choi.

Hoa Phat Group hopes to earn more than 100 trillion VND in revenue by 2020, the year the Hoa Phat Dung Quat iron and steel production complex is expected to become fully operational. ​

Steel production and consumption recorded a slump in January compared to the last month of 2016.