Suffering from Protectionism
Vietnam also decided to levy anti-dumping duties on Korean-made galvanized steel sheets.
The Indian government decided to impose anti-dumping duties on Korean filament yarns (FYs). Vietnam also decided to levy anti-dumping duties on Korean-made galvanized steel sheets.
According to the industry on March 31, the government of India recently decided to impose anti-dumping duties on filament yarns produced by Korean chemical companies. In addition to Korean products, the anti-dumping duties targeted Chinese, Taiwanese and Vietnamese products. It is said that anti-dumping duties will be laid separately for each company, ranging from US$0.9 to US$3.4 per kilogram.
In January, the Indian government began an antidumping investigation into filament yarns from six countries, including South Korea. In general, it takes about six months to investigate a dumping case, but this time it only took less than three months. Therefore, the decision is called quite unusual in the industry.
Filament yarns are synthetic chemical yarns used for swimwear and golf jackets. They are mainly used for leisure clothes such as golf and mountain climbing.
Vietnam also decided to levy anti-dumping duties on Korean-made galvanized steel sheets. According to the KOTRA Trade Center in Hanoi, the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade plans to levy anti-dumping duties on galvanized steel sheets imported from South Korea for five years beginning on April 14. The antidumping tariff rate is 7.02% for Posco and 19.0% for other Korean companies. The Vietnamese government imposes 3.17- to 38.34-percent anti-dumping duties on Chinese steelmakers.
Korean companies are on high alert as protectionist barriers are rising in India and Southeast Asia. This is because industry watchers understand that although India has a population of 1.3 billion, surpassing China, and Southeast Asia, a population of 600 million so the two markets have great potential, but these markets’ potential risks were accentuated. Indeed, according to the Korea International Trade Association, the Indian government took import control measures on Korean products for a total of 33 cases more than twice as many as China’s 14 cases. In October of last year, the Indian government started to investigate the dumping of Korean toluene diisocyanate (TDI), a raw material for polyurethane. "The Indian market is risky as Posco recently scrapped its plan to build an Indian steel mill in 12 years," an industry official said. “"Not only systems but also races, languages, cultures, customs are different depending on regions, which hamper Korean companies’ business.
Meanwhile, the USTR gave a somewhat positive assessment of the Korea-US FTA in its first report on trade barriers after Trump was inaugurated as US president. In particular, "The Korea-US FTA helped the export of US automobiles," the USTR said. "Korea has strengthened intellectual property rights protection." These comments hint at a possibility that the Trump administration will carefully approach the Korea-US FTA in the process of renegotiating trade agreements.