RP seen as most vulnerable to cement dumping

The Philippines has been identified as the country most vulnerable to cement dumping as the whole Asian region struggles to cope with a supply glut that has driven some countries to dump cement into offshore markets.

Already under pressure from cheap Taiwanese imports, local cement manufacturers have warned government that mainland China has begun exporting cement to the Philippines.

Quoting the results of the 3rd East Asia Cement Forum held in China last month, a paper presented by the cement industry to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) indicated that China and India alone had a total excess capacity of 137.6 million metric tons.

This on top of the 109-million metric ton excess capacity of countries in Southeast Asia such as Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, and Korea as well as Japan.

The paper noted that Japan, Taiwan and Indonesia are now exporting cement to the Philippines. Together, these countries have an excess capacity of 48 million tons per year, approximately four times the size of the Philippines’ 12.2-million annual demand for cement.

According to the study, the first shipment of cement from China arrived in Cebu last August.

Most of the countries are studying plans to export to the Philippines and are waiting to see how investigations of anti-dumping would pan out before taking appropriate actions to begin shipping cement to the country, the paper said.

Neighboring countries have the ability and capacity to cause a collapse of the domestic cement industry if the appropriate measures are not imposed during this period of regional excess capacity, the paper pointed out.

The paper said the same countries now making aggressive moves to export their excess production have taken appropriate measures to protect their own cement industries.

The paper noted that Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Indonesia have ceased issuing permits for the construction of cement import terminals. These countries have also tightened cement importation requirements to make importation difficult.

As a result, the paper said Japan’s imports have declined to no more than two percent of national consumption while South Korea’s imports now stand at one percent of national consumption.

In the same vein, the paper pointed out that Malaysia had increased tariffs on cement importation to 20 percent for ASEAN countries and 50 percent for non-ASEAN countries. The Malaysian government also requires industry approval of all applications for import terminals.

"Thailand is believed to be taking a different approach to protecting itself from regional excess capacity," the paper said.

According to the paper, the Thai cement industry has warned any country that would export to Thailand during the period of excess capacity would have to deal with retaliatory measures such as large counter-exports that would flood the exporting country.