China Steel Corp (CSC, 中鋼), the nation’s largest steelmaker, yesterday announced that it would cut steel quotation prices for domestic deliveries next month — its first price cut across the board since August last year — as the global steel market grapples with China’s excessive exports of low-priced products.
The move also reflects weak sentiment in the market dented by factors such as extreme weather, financial market turmoil and the off-season effect in summer, the Kaohsiung-based company said in a statement.
While the prices of iron ore have recently dropped to US$100 per tonne and those of coking coal have fallen to between US$210 and US$220 per tonne to help cut steelmaking cost, they are still at relatively high on a long term basis, it said.
Photo: Bloomberg
As a result, the company said it would lower the price of benchmark hot-rolled steel plates and coils by NT$600 per tonne and cold-rolled steel plates and coils by NT$500 per tonne.
The company would also decrease the price of anti-fingerprint electro-galvanized steel coils, used for construction, hot-dipped galvanized steel coils, used for home appliances, computers and other materials, and electrical steel coils by NT$500 per tonne each, it said.
“We will moderately lower prices in September to help domestic downstream customers secure orders and lessen the impact of low-priced steel imports,” China Steel said in the statement.
The company said the oversupply situation in China has continued to worsen, leading to a large number of low-priced products being exported.
ArcelorMittal SA, the world's second-largest steel producer, earlier this month said China’s aggressive exports were creating problems for the global steel industry, while China Baowu Steel Group Corp (寶武鋼鐵集), the world's largest, this week warned of a severe industry crisis as steel prices collapse.
In the first seven months of this year, exports of steel from China increased 21.8 percent year-on-year to 61.23 million tonnes, while average export prices decreased 24.8 percent from a year earlier, both adding pressure on the global steel market, China Steel said, citing data compiled by the Beijing-based China Iron and Steel Association.
Countries including Vietnam, Thailand and Turkey have recently responded with trade measures, including anti-dumping complaints against China’s hot-rolled steel products, the company said, adding that it would also apply for trade remedy measures in Taiwan to curb the arrivals of low-priced steel products from China.
On Tuesday, the company reported its net profit in the first half of the year surged 635.58 percent year-on-year to NT$1.96 billion (US$60.7 million).
Earnings per share rose to NT$0.13 from NT$0.02 in the same period a year earlier.
Consolidated revenue in the first seven months grew 1.2 percent annually to NT$217.6 billion, the company said in a regulatory filing.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) would not produce its most advanced technologies in the US next year, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. Kuo made the comment during an appearance at the legislature, hours after the chipmaker announced that it would invest an additional US$100 billion to expand its manufacturing operations in the US. Asked by Taiwan People’s Party Legislator-at-large Chang Chi-kai (張啟楷) if TSMC would allow its most advanced technologies, the yet-to-be-released 2-nanometer and 1.6-nanometer processes, to go to the US in the near term, Kuo denied it. TSMC recently opened its first US factory, which produces 4-nanometer
PROTECTION: The investigation, which takes aim at exporters such as Canada, Germany and Brazil, came days after Trump unveiled tariff hikes on steel and aluminum products US President Donald Trump on Saturday ordered a probe into potential tariffs on lumber imports — a move threatening to stoke trade tensions — while also pushing for a domestic supply boost. Trump signed an executive order instructing US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick to begin an investigation “to determine the effects on the national security of imports of timber, lumber and their derivative products.” The study might result in new tariffs being imposed, which would pile on top of existing levies. The investigation takes aim at exporters like Canada, Germany and Brazil, with White House officials earlier accusing these economies of
Teleperformance SE, the largest call-center operator in the world, is rolling out an artificial intelligence (AI) system that softens English-speaking Indian workers’ accents in real time in a move the company claims would make them more understandable. The technology, called accent translation, coupled with background noise cancelation, is being deployed in call centers in India, where workers provide customer support to some of Teleperformance’s international clients. The company provides outsourced customer support and content moderation to global companies including Apple Inc, ByteDance Ltd’s (字節跳動) TikTok and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. “When you have an Indian agent on the line, sometimes it’s hard
PROBE CONTINUES: Those accused falsely represented that the chips would not be transferred to a person other than the authorized end users, court papers said Singapore charged three men with fraud in a case local media have linked to the movement of Nvidia’s advanced chips from the city-state to Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) firm DeepSeek (深度求索). The US is investigating if DeepSeek, the Chinese company whose AI model’s performance rocked the tech world in January, has been using US chips that are not allowed to be shipped to China, Reuters reported earlier. The Singapore case is part of a broader police investigation of 22 individuals and companies suspected of false representation, amid concerns that organized AI chip smuggling to China has been tracked out of nations such
RSS