Malaysia still studying ways to help Lion, says Mustapa

The government said it is still studying options to help the Lion Group, a day after the steelmaker threatened to move its operations to Indonesia.

The options include banning iron and steel scrap exports, Trade Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed said during a press conference at the Forbes Global CEO Conference yesterday.the north face jackets Iron and steel scraps are used to make hot rolled coils HRC.

The government allows zero import duty for HRC from both Indonesia and Thailand,china nfl jerseys wholesale but these countries impose a 48 per cent and 43 per cent duty,Youth Nfl jerseys respectively, on the same product from Malaysia.

Lion wants a 35 per cent tariff on HRC imports.

"If we do that, consumers will have to pay more and construction cost will increase," Mustapa said.

Investigations into the matter under the Safeguards Act 2006 were initiated on May 1 2011 after receiving petitionfrom Lion's subsidiary group, Megasteel Sdn Bhd.

The government found that although imports jumped 35 per cent between January 1 2010 and September 30 2010, they were not hurting the domestic industry.

Megasteel refuted this claim and said the continuous import caused hardship to its company and its 4,600 employees. The group is requesting the government to provide a more conducive environment to support the local steel industry to grow and expand in both upstream and downstream sectors.

In an earlier report,cheap Chargers Jerseys Lion chairman Tan Sri William Cheng said the company would agree to a ceiling price for local HRC if it felt the group was making too much profit.