Vietnam steel exports kick off 2019 with a spike in Jan shipments, with a total of 771,056 mt of steel products shipped out, a 73.9% spike year on year amid higher shipments to Cambodia, latest customs data showed.
Cambodia was the top destination for the products in January, reaching 160,775 mt, a 55.7% hike from the year before. Cambodia is an important market for Vietnam as the country does not have a steel industry, and the number of high-rise construction projects there has been increasing.
“Cambodia mostly imports longs steel products from Vietnam. Emerging markets like Cambodia and Myanmar are really full of potential,” a Vietnam-based mill source said, adding that the sharp increase in exports could be partly attributed to recent ramping up of steel capacity in Vietnam.
For instance, Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Corp. fired up a second blast furnace on May 18, 2018, and doubled its crude steel production capacity to 7 million mt/year.
Coming in second was Indonesia with 91,712 mt of Vietnamese imports, a 37.4% rise year on year, while the US was third with 83,463 mt in shipments, a 66.8% rise.
Though not in the top three, several destinations more than doubled their import volumes from Vietnam, such as the Philippines with 51,772 mt, more than triple the 15,353 mt posted a year ago.
Another destination was Thailand with 68,469 mt, more than double the 30,483 mt a year earlier.
Overall imports for January dipped slightly to 1.15 million mt versus 1.16 million mt as shipments from Japan, South Korea and Taiwan fell.
Although overall imports were lower, shipments from Russia more than tripled to 89,793 mt versus 26,635 mt, while China sent 526,764 mt, 30.5% higher year on year.
In 2018, total exports and imports stood at 6.26 million mt and 13.5 million mt, respectively. The former was 33.1% higher on the year while the latter was down 9.8%.
- SP Global