Pacific Steel in Auckland has lost its bid to have China and Malaysia penalised over steel coming into this country at low prices.
Photo: AFP
The Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs Kris Faafoi has found the steel reinforcing bar and coil is not being dumped so is not harming the industry here.
This follows the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment concluding that while Pacific Steel's prices had been undercut by cheap imports from China and Malaysia, there was no evidence of dumping.
The ministry also found that the industry here was not being damaged by China subsidising its rebar exports.
Pacific Steel's complaint had referred to Chinese subsidy programmes of an average 50 percent of the steel price, which Australian, Canadian, EU and US authorities had identified.
Globally, steel wars are carrying on, with US tariffs of 25 percent on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminium to take effect on Friday.
In New Zealand, ministry investigators concluded it was factors such as low rebar prices globally that had hurt profitability at the Australian-owned Pacific Steel.
Hardly any Chinese or Malaysian companies responded to the ministry's questions.
"Only one manufacturer in each country responded to the questionnaire," the ministry's final dumping report said.
This was the same problem that bedevilled another China dumping investigation last year, which went against Pacific Steel's parent company New Zealand Steel.
The Chinese government, while it provided general comments and copies of laws, regulations and other measures, also "tailored" its response to only cover programmes related to specific manufacturers, the ministry's final subsidy report said.
"Pacific Steel has not identifed any ... impairment related to employment and wages" from the alleged dumping, it said.
The volume of the steel imports from China and Malaysia have been rising.