South Korea to impose additional tariffs on China’s steel industry

Recently, South Korea decided to impose additional tariffs on Chinese steel products2. The Trade Commission of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy of South Korea announced an anti-dumping investigation on hot-rolled carbon steel plates and hot-rolled alloy steel plates originating from China and Japan1. The tax rate of this tax increase is between 27.91% and 38.02%, which will have a certain impact on the Chinese steel industry.

This decision of South Korea is mainly due to the long-term pressure from local steel companies. South Korean companies believe that China’s dumping of low-priced steel has caused damage to the local industry3. However, this decision has also caused concerns in the Korean manufacturing industry, because after the tax increase, the market purchase cost of Korean steel products will rise sharply.