It's so nice to see that the Thai manufacturers are so concerned about the safety and reliability of products that are imported into Thailand in direct competition to their own. Some cynics here may believe that all this bluster has to do with protecting their profits but that would not be fair. Everyone knows that in Thailand, safety and quality comes before profit.

Of course Thai bar is world class..... every factory has a big ISO 14001 sign draped outside.... thus, how could Chinese standards be up to scratch, and better than Thai bar? Considering that China has only constructed 9 of the tallest Buildings in the world, of course.

Er you do know ISO 14000, is an enviromental standard not a quality standard on manufactured product dont you ?

In reality, Thailand has some excellent carbon steel and stainless steel production facilites and does quite a lot of export, and some are certified by ASTM and API, therefore they comply with the quality standards set by both those US organisations, and no they havent bought the certification, but lets not let that these little facts get in way of a good conspriacy theory shall we ?

And before someone mentions ISO-9000, all this does if prove you are following the standards/procedures of the company, its not a reflection on the actual product quality per se itself

And for the record, China does export dodgy steel product with forged material certificates from some very suspect mills, so if someone is procurring steel product in China one does have to really do their due dilligence very carefully to understand who you are dealing with..

So before you start bulldozing in with your expert opinion, can I suggest you do a little research on google before..

Interesting article. Just over eight months ago a local friend in commercial construction, who I was talking to about my condo search, mentioned if I had any interest in newly constructed units, that I should take a cutting of some exposed rebar and get it analyzed as it was the case that sub-standard rebar from China was being dumped in Thailand, and in the future there will be a number of buildings found out to be rotten inside.

Every country is allowed a few Non-tariff trade barriers

Nothing but protectionism. China quality standards are indeed suspect but the drive behind this is far from a quality issue.

Must be me. I thought steel was an alloy.

Purely a protectionist attempt.

China at this moment in time, is producing so much surplus steel, that they can hardly give it away, and are even resorting to selling it in open lots on Alibaba

It seems more help for Thailand. And chinese alloy steel is very strong. Such as the 4140 steel, 4340 steel and etc. There is a long way for it to get big achievement.

Difficult for me to remember a  construction/fabrication project where the contract didn't state that 'materials shall not be sourced from China', especially where pressure vessels and pipeworks were involved.

All materials were checked mechanically, charpy, tensiles and bends and by analysis anyway but in general Chinese steels were not allowed.