TOMAGO employer Milltech Martin Bright is under siege from Romanian competitors as it battles to level the playing field.
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There’s evidence Romanian manufacturers have engaged in anti-competitive practices including stock dumping – selling chrome bar in Australia below manufacturing costs.
Milltech Martin Bright just turned 24 and hopes to live well past 25 for the sake of its 60 employees.
“If this isn’t addressed we’ll lose our business, we’ll lose our jobs,” managing director Fred Reis said.
“Manufacturing is already on a slippery slope in Australia.”
Chrome bar is used extensively in the hydraulics of earth moving equipment. Milltech Martin Bright is the last such Australian manufacturer.
One Romanian in the game told Mr Reis he could always become a supplier for them once he went broke.
Mr Reis called on the Anti-Dumping Commission in November to right the wrong.
In March it released preliminary findings that recommend the federal government increase the effective duty payable on some Romanian chrome bar imports by up to 78.2 per cent.
Italian suppliers are also under investigation.
“We are not after subsidies or protection, we just want fair competition,” Mr Reis said.
It comes at a time when the steel Australian steel industry is already under pressure.
OneSteel parent company Arrium went into voluntary administration on Thursday when it cited cheap Chinese imports as one cause.
MolyCop – another Hunter-based Arrium business - only last year persuaded the ADC to investigate dumping of metal grinding balls by Chinese companies.
The state government has also come under fire this week when it signed an $8.3 million deal to use Spanish steel for for the Metro Northwest project.
Mr Reis said he produces 20,000 tonnes a year and of that 12,000t of the basic steel bar comes from OneSteel. If they go, Mr Reis said he’d have to consider importing stock at a considerable investment.
“If the banks say to the administrators Grant Thornton, ‘squeeze them for everything you can’, anything could happen,” Mr Reis said.
He’s hopeful for the sake of Australian manufacturing that Grant Thornton allows Arrium to trade out of its difficulties; largely a result of its poorly performing iron ore investments.
“We’ve been told by the [OneSteel] markets manager that it’s business as usual for the time being,” Mr Reis said.
The ADC is expected to finalise its report to the federal government within two months.
