Steel imports

In the 1980s the-then Lange Labour Government embraced Milton Friedman’s free-market principles which also encompassed globalisation. Consequently, many industries here closed as they were exported to China and other low-labour-cost places in Asia.

So now we find ourselves faced with being dependent on imported product, primarily from an area that has long been well known for its piracy of products and lowquality goods. Now when we demand some accountability from a superpower that has never been a true democracy and has significant expansionist aspirations, it is not surprising that we now learn that the past velvet glove was worn over a mailed fist.

From railway trains to construction steel, when will we learn that the long-term cost of doing business with such countries far outweighs the short-term savings. Murray Shaw, Whanganui

China is not dumping cut-price steel on New Zealand. Greedy New Zealanders are ordering cut-price steel in a misguided but predictable strategy to maximise profit. China Blue? Stuart Mathieson, Dunedin

The suggestion by some that China is dumping substandard steel into the New Zealand marketplace

certainly doesn’t match our experience as importers of fabricated structural steel

We have a long business relationship with China and we’ve painstakingly developed a worldclass quality assurance regime.

Many of us well remember similar dumping and quality claims when the clothing and motor industries were deregulated in the 1970s and 1980s. These claims proved to be unfounded. Bert Govan, chairman, Challenge Steel, Christchurch