South Korea has taken frequent actions in its stainless steel trade policies. On August 12, South Korea's Ministry of Strategy and Finance issued Announcement No. 2025-171, deciding to impose a five-year anti-dumping duty on hot-rolled stainless steel plates originating from China, with a unified tax rate of 21.62%. The enterprises involved include Sichuang International Development Co., Ltd., Jiangsu Dagen Stainless Steel Co., Ltd., their affiliated enterprises and exporters, as well as other Chinese producers. The taxed products cover those under multiple tariff codes in South Korea, except for specific products such as hot-rolled coils. In fact, South Korea launched the trade remedy investigation into Chinese hot-rolled stainless steel plates as early as September 6, 2024, and imposed a four-month provisional anti-dumping duty on March 25 this year. Stakeholders are required to submit written comments by August 26. This measure will undoubtedly have a far-reaching impact on the Sino-South Korean stainless steel trade structure. Relevant Chinese enterprises are facing severe challenges in their export business, while South Korea's domestic stainless steel industry is expected to gain more market protection and development space through this move.

At the same time, India has been strengthening quality supervision of stainless steel. Since August 1, India's "2025 Stainless Steel Pipes (Quality Control) Order" has officially taken effect. It stipulates that all stainless steel pipes exported to India must obtain BIS certification and be affixed with the BIS mark. Only stainless steel pipes used for R&D purposes have an annual exemption quota of 500 kilograms, and violations will be subject to severe penalties. This means that enterprises around the world exporting stainless steel pipes to India need to re-plan their certification processes and cost budgets to meet the access requirements of the Indian market. India's move aims to improve the quality of products in its domestic stainless steel market and promote the standardized development of the industry. In the long run, it will reshape the global trade flow of stainless steel pipes.

From the perspective of market supply and demand data, the Brazilian Steel Distributors Association reported that Brazil's steel sales in August decreased by 2.5% month-on-month, reflecting a certain degree of weakness in local market demand. In terms of inventory, as of August 21, the total inventory of stainless steel in Wuxi market reached 614,600 tons, an increase of 4,441 tons compared with the previous period, with a growth rate of 0.73%. Currently, the overall downstream demand for stainless steel remains weak. Although domestic enterprises carried out production cuts in June and July, the inventory level is still high, and there was a slight upward trend in inventory this week.

In the futures and spot markets, the price of the stainless steel market has fluctuated frequently recently. Last Friday, LME nickel closed up by 35 US dollars to 14,975 US dollars per ton. In the evening, the main Shanghai nickel contract closed up by 540 yuan to 120,150 yuan per ton, and the stainless steel futures 2510 contract closed up by 70 yuan to 12,825 yuan per ton. At the macro level, Federal Reserve Chairman Powell turned dovish at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium, stating that the risk balance is changing, the downside risks to employment are rising, and policy adjustments may be needed. Affected by this, traders increased their bets on the Federal Reserve's interest rate cut in September, and the US dollar index weakened. After experiencing nine consecutive declines earlier, the stainless steel futures market turned red in the evening of Friday and reclaimed the 12,800 mark, with the low point of this week reaching around 12,700. The fluctuations in futures drove the volatility of the spot market. Taking the domestic market as an example, the price of Delong stainless steel fell from a high of 12,750 to around 12,600 yuan (base price). During the low period, the futures price even dropped to around 12,550 yuan (base price), with a decline of 150-200 yuan per ton. After the futures market turned red on Friday evening, most spot markets rebounded by more than 50 yuan on Saturday. In terms of 201 series stainless steel, Tsingshan's agents maintained orders at a base price of 7,150 yuan, while the prices of Beigang series fluctuated frequently. Driven by positive news about ferrochrome, the prices first fell and then rebounded.

In the field of technical standards, Taiyuan Iron and Steel (TISCO) brought important news. The International Organization for Standardization Technical Committee on Corrosion of Metals and Alloys (ISO/TC156) officially approved TISCO to take the lead in revising two international corrosion standards - ISO 3651-1:1998 and ISO 3651-2:1998. These two standards respectively regulate the core testing methods for the intergranular corrosion resistance of stainless steel in nitric acid and sulfuric acid media, and are widely used in key fields such as energy and chemical industry. At the 37th Annual Meeting of ISO/TC 156 and its working meetings held from June 23 to 27, the standard revision team from TISCO Technology Center elaborated on the necessity of revision and the technical plan. They pointed out that the original standards urgently need to be updated in terms of sensitization temperature and time control, and corrosion evaluation methods for welded samples, and proposed suggestions to introduce more efficient testing methods such as oxalic acid electrolytic etching. The proposal was finally recognized by the working group. Dr. Zhang Litao from the standard revision team of TISCO Technology Center was appointed as the project leader, and the release of the new version is expected to be completed in June 2028. This not only reflects TISCO's technical strength in the field of stainless steel corrosion testing, but also means that in the future, the testing of the relevant corrosion performance of global stainless steel products will take the standards revised under TISCO's leadership as an important reference, promoting the technical upgrading of the industry.