By the end of July, Vietnam had a trade deficit of nearly 2 million tons of iron

DNHN - In recent years, the domestic steel industry has made significant progress, but it is still dependent on imported raw materials.

Information from the General Department of Vietnam Customs shows that, in July, 2022, Vietnam's iron and steel exports reached 613,454 tons, down 28.7% compared to June.

Meanwhile, imports of iron and steel amounted to 909,245 tons, down 26.9% over the same period last year. In total since the beginning of the year, iron and steel exports fell sharply by more than 22% while imports weakened by nearly 8%.

In recent years, the domestic steel production industry has made significant progress, but is still dependent on imported raw materials.

Previously, in 2021, Vietnam imported 12.31 million tons of iron and steel of all kinds, mainly from China when this market accounted for 41.38% of total steel imports. The next countries supplying steel to Vietnam are Japan (14.51%), South Korea (13.63%), India (12.2%).

The biggest limitation of the steel industry is that it can only meet the construction needs, while steel in the field of manufacturing, processing, mechanical engineering, or supporting industries has not yet been able to meet.

In addition, most of the input materials for this industry have to be imported, so the cost of products will depend a lot on foreign market factors. This is still one of the big challenges of Vietnam's steel industry in the coming time.

PV