Because Taiwan's government may allow China's steel plates can free import to Taiwan without conditional, it pushed Taiwan's China Steel Corp. (CSC) has to think about new market strategy to secure its customers.
CSBC Corp., one of the major shipbuilding manufacturers in Taiwan which is also one of CSC's plate buyers said about 90% of its current steel plates are coming from CSC, but in order to save its cost, CSBC may start to purchase Chinese plates in the coming future.
In order to secure this large buyer, CSC may provide very attractive price discount to CSBC. According to market analyst's calculation, CSC's current plate price is about US$55/ton higher than the global market price level and CSBC's annual used quantity is about 250,000 tons.
To calculate by this quantity, it means CSBC may have the chance to cost down in its raw material purchase by about NT$400 million per year.