The weak Turkish lira and renewed trade tensions between the United States and China have dampened demand for imported hot-rolled coil in Vietnam.
The Fastmarkets MB weekly import price assessment for HRC in Southeast Asia - which mainly looks at Chinese 2-3mm re-rolling-grade SAE1006 HRC and equivalent products sold into Vietnam - was $530-540 per tonne cfr for the week ending Monday May 13, unchanged from a week earlier.Turkish HRC was offered at $535 per tonne cfr Vietnam over the past week, which kept the Turkey-Asia arbitrage window open. But no transactions involving such materials were heard.Market participants expect Turkish HRC to remain competitively priced in the spot market, especially amid the weakening...