(Bloomberg) — Japan and South Korea are the latest countries to target Chinese steel products with anti-dumping measures, amid a growing backlash across the world against the country’s cheaper commodities.
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Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is seeking to broaden the scope of anti-dumping duties to cover Chinese steel among other products routed via third countries. Meanwhile, South Korea said Thursday it has launched an anti-dumping probe into imports of stainless steel plates made in China.
The actions come as concerns grow in a number of countries over the impact of cheap goods flowing from the world’s biggest manufacturing nation. The US announced higher tariffs on Chinese steel earlier this year, adding to South American countries which also hiked taxes on the same.
China’s steel industry has been decreasing output, with production down more than 3% in the first eight months in 2024 compared with the same period last year. But the domestic slowdown means that even with that cut, there’s too much metal for the local economy to absorb, pushing steel exports up more than 20% in the same period.
Officials in Seoul said a local company has alleged that Chinese products were sold below market value.
Meanwhile, the Japanese trade agency is considering approaching the Ministry of Finance before the end of this month, when all government agencies present their requests for tariff revisions in the following fiscal year. The country’s biggest steel manufacturer Nippon Steel Corp. had said it is lobbying the government alongside other local firms to impose measures against Chinese imports of the building metal.
–With assistance from Sam Kim, James Mayger and Tsuyoshi Inajima.
(Corrects Chinese steep output and exports in penultimate paragraph.)
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