A production line at a Hoa Sen plant. — Photo Courtesy Hoa Sen Group

HCM CITY — Steel maker Hoa Sen Group has said its business will not be affected by the US Department of Commerce’s preliminary ruling on the circumvention inquiries it made into Vietnamese cold-rolled steel and corrosion-resistant steel exports.

In a release late on Wednesday, the company’s deputy general director, Vũ Văn Thanh, said: “Hoa Sen used materials from Việt Nam or materials which did not originate in Taiwan or RoK for making products to export to the US.”

His company has closely co-operated with the department by supplying all documents about the materials’ origin, he said.

“In recent years, the company has been improving product quality to meet all the requirements applied by [the department] and so we have exported big volumes to this market.”

Hoa Sen accounted for 37 per cent of Việt Nam’s output of corrosion-resistant steel last year.

Its strategy is to simultaneously develop both its domestic and export markets and has 563 retail shops around the country.

Earlier this month, the US Department of Commerce (DOC) imposed a 456 per cent tax on Vietnamese cold-rolled steel and corrosion-resistant steel using raw materials imported from Taiwan and South Korea.

The US has slapped anti-dumping and anti-subsidy taxes on Taiwan and South Korea.

Based on preliminary conclusions, it will temporarily waive tax on cold-rolled steel and corrosion-resistant steel products imported from Việt Nam through the collection of escrow deposits.

Lê Triệu Dũng, director of the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s department of trade protection, was quoted on customsnews.vn as saying the case was initiated by the US in August 2018.

The Ministry, the Vietnam Steel Association and businesses have provided information for the US investigation, he said, adding that if the US authority found that the steel was produced using materials from Việt Nam and other countries and territories, no tax would be imposed.  VNS