Hanoi (VNS/VNA) — Consumption ofsteel products, especially colour-coated steel, declined inOctober while production continued to rise, according to the VietnamSteel Association (VSA).

The VSA saidconstruction steel production of its members reached 914,520 tonnes in October,up 10.05 percent compared to September and similar to to the same period in2018. However, consumption reached 867,356 tonnes, up 9.42 percent compared toSeptember but down 3.2 percent compared to the same period last year.

The association alsocalculated that production of hot rolled steel products reached 353,420 tonnes,up 17.28 percent compared to September and up 3.4 percent over the same periodin 2018, but consumption was only 291,850 tonnes, down 7.83 percent and 1.5 percentcompared to September and the same period last year, respectively.

Similarly, coldrolled steel production reached 331,365 tonnes, up 1.96 percent compared toSeptember and equal to last year. Consumption reached 184,920 tonnes, adecrease of 6.72 percent compared to September but anincrease of 4.3 percent compared to the same period last year.

Colour-coated steelproduction saw the sharpest decline in October, reaching 348,902 tonnes,an increase of 4.51 percent compared to September, but down 15.3 percentcompared to the same period last year. Consumption reached 325,998 tonnes,an increase of 4.32 percent compared to September but down 5.3 percentyear-on-year.

Exports declined 18.8percent compared to the same period in 2018 to 130,158 tonnes. Inrecent years exports of corrugated iron products had been on the rise. Thedecrease in consumption and increased production had caused problemsfor many enterprises, forcing them to lay off employees.

Ninh Thi BichThuy, general director of TVP Steel Joint Stock Company,said the consumption of corrugated iron faced difficulties due to localcompetitive pressure between local and imported products as well as from theUS-China trade tension which affected exports with stricter trade barriers.

Tightened lending frombanks for the realty market had also slowed down the construction industry, she added.

As of September 30, Vietnamhad exported more than 5.95 million tonnes of finished and semi-finishedproducts, up 3.9 percent in volume over the same period in 2018 but down 8 percentin value, reaching over 3.9 billion USD.

According to the VSA,while exports fell sharply, imports had continued to increase year by year. Asof September 30, imports of finished and semi-finished steel products reachedmore than 12 million tonnes, and total import turnover reached more than 8.2billion USD. Most imported products came from China, Japan, Republic of Korea (RoK), China’s Taiwan andIndia.

To help local steelproducers, on October 29, the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) decided toapply anti-dumping duties on some colour-coated steel products originating fromthe RoK and China. It also extended anti-dumping duties on cold-rolled stainless steelproducts originating from China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan for anadditional five years, starting from October 26./.