Chile’s sole steel mill has said it will shut down in the face of competition from cheap Chinese imports, in a blow to the country’s government, which had imposed tariffs on China earlier this year in a bid to save it.
Chilean steelmaker CAP, which runs the Huachipato mill in Chile’s central Bio Bio region, said on Wednesday that it would shutter its steel operations “indefinitely” by September, blaming an influx of imports from China for more than $500mn in losses over the past two years.
Chilean officials consider Huachipato, a big supplier of steel materials to Chile’s massive copper mining industry, to be strategically important. The plant employs roughly 20,000 people, directly and indirectly, in Bio Bio.