The Korean Trade Commission (KTC) initiated an anti-dumping investigation on stainless steel coils from Taiwan, China, and Indonesia at the request of POSCO on September 17. However, 470 local enterprises jointly requested POSCO to withdraw the complaints and submitted their objections to the KTC.

The three reasons they opposed the investigation are as follows:

(1) South Korean stainless steel production scale is limited and it is difficult to obtain stable raw materials; (2) Whether the quality of POSCO’s products is the same as that of imported goods, POSCO’s price is high; (3) Once the price of imported raw materials rises due to the levy of anti-dumping duties, the final product will lose its competitive advantage and the related manufacturing industry will also be difficult to operate.