 |
According to the Vietnam Steel Association’s figure, the domestic sales of finished steel products decreased by nearly 27 percent over the same period in 2022 or to about 1.8 million tons by the end of January.
In which, metal-plated and color-coated corrugated iron dropped by 42 percent or to nearly 251,000 tons. Cold rolled steel products also recorded a similar decrease, down to more than 107,000 tons. Construction steel products declined by 20 percent to 844,000 tons. The Hoa Phat Group said that in January, it produced 392,000 tons of crude steel, equivalent to 56 percent over the same period; but sales of construction steel, billet and hot rolled coil reached only 402,000 tons, down 36 percent.
Similarly, in the export segment, sales also decreased by 21.2 percent to 511,000 tons. Worse, amongst kinds of steels, construction steel exports fell sharply by 36.4 percent to 147,5,000 tons. Metal-coated and color-coated corrugated iron products recorded the deepest export decrease of 72.4 percent to more than 65,000 tons.
Explaining why recent continuous increase in steel prices but businesses still suffer losses, the Vietnam Steel Association said that the increase in raw material prices causes domestic factories to increase selling prices many times to compensate for production costs and reduce losses. Accordingly, the average price of domestic construction steel is currently increasing by about 5 percent compared to the end of 2022 but still 8 percent lower than the same period last year.
Because the selling price of finished steel increased more slowly than the growth rate of input materials, the business performance of construction steel companies was still low, and it was difficult from input materials to consumption of output finished products.
