Insight

Anti-dumping: The industry’s viewpoint

In the last edition of Fastener + Fixing Magazine we invited the European Fastener Distributors Association and the European Industrial Fasteners Institute to give us their perspective on the anti-dumping investigation into imports of certain iron or steel fasteners from the People’s Republic of China (2020/C 442/06). For this issue we have invited individual manufacturers and distributors to give us their perspective.

Nobody’s thoughts have been omitted. If ideas or beliefs are not represented it is simply because they were not provided. Through necessity of space, some contributions have been edited, but we have been meticulous in retaining the core of each contributor’s perspective. We also gave companies the opportunity to remain anonymous if they preferred. We make no claim for how representative these assessments are, but they represent both sides of the discussion and make for a fascinating read.

Mark Thijssen MSc
manager sales and marketing
Thielco Steel Solutions Group

As a surface treatment provider we work for European fastener manufacturers and we are often the last step in the supply chain before the products are delivered to the end user. Due to the fact we are the last step in the supply chain process, there is often little buffer left in the delivery time and therefore reliability is our highest goal.

That is precisely why we continuously monitor market needs and in recent months we have seen an erratic picture, driven by the pandemic, difficult logistics from Asia, as well as the unrest from the possibility of protectionist measures. For the first time in years, there is strong appeal for using European manufacturers, our customers. There is renewed appreciation for the reliable quality, modern possibilities, fast delivery times and good information, and communication, that we hold dear in Europe.

There seems to be a feeling that European manufacturers do not have sufficient capacity to meet market needs, but we beg to differ. We are witnessing a lot of activity in the market and it is a sign of great flexibility and occupational health that the European manufacturers can invest in upscaling so quickly to meet the demand, as they have done over the last twelve months. We also believe that no one benefits from extreme anti-dumping measures; imports remain necessary, always. Nevertheless, restoring the healthy balance between local production and import is good for European manufacturers, who have been trying to conduct healthy business operations under heavy price pressure for years, and thus for the European economy and employment.

The same is expected from Thielco. We are now working even more actively with our customers in the field of forecasting than before the pandemic, to maintain the delivery times of less than 1 week for hot dip galvanising, mechanical plating and zinc flake coating. We have developed various scaling-up scenarios, should the pressure increase further and guarantee our customers, distributors and end users that we are ready to face the challenges.