HÀ NỘI — The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) has ordered stricter customs checks on hot-rolled coil (HRC) steel imports wider than 1,880mm, amid a surge in volume and suspected tax evasion that could be undermining domestic industry and state revenues.

HRC steel – a key input in construction and manufacturing – has recently seen an unusual spike in import volumes.

According to baochinhphu.vn, the MoIT has formally requested that the General Department of Customs intensify inspections, citing signs that importers may be misreporting specifications to bypass anti-dumping duties.

In June alone, Việt Nam imported approximately 215,000 tonnes of wide-format HRC, a staggering 26-fold increase from the same period last year, when imports stood at just 8,000 tonnes.

Over the first six months of 2025, HRC imports from China reached nearly 650,000 tonnes – 15 times higher than in the first half of 2024. Notably, steel coils with widths of 2,000mm accounted for 74 per cent of this total.

Industry analysts attribute the surge to a tax policy change introduced in February that imposed provisional anti-dumping duties on HRC products no wider than 1,880mm from China and India. Coils exceeding this width are exempt, effectively creating a loophole that some importers may be exploiting by adjusting product specifications.

The Trade Remedies Authority of Vietnam has warned that HRC wider than 1,880mm shares essentially the same technical characteristics, applications and market uses as the taxed steel, suggesting that reclassification is being used as a means of tax avoidance.

This could violate trade remedy regulations under decrees 10/2018 and 86/2025 and severely weaken the effectiveness of Việt Nam’s anti-dumping framework.

The financial implications are substantial. With the current anti-dumping duty rate at 27.8 per cent, the suspected misclassification of imported steel in the first half of the year could have cost the State budget an estimated VNĐ2.3 trillion (US$90 million).

Beyond fiscal losses, the influx of untaxed steel imports has introduced unfair competition and placed growing pressure on domestic producers. Authorities are expected to review classification standards and reinforce inspection protocols in the next few months. — BIZHUB/VNS