Brussels, 02/02/2016 (Agence Europe) - The European steel association, Eurofer, is at the origin of the complaint that led the European Commission to decide on Thursday 28 January to impose provisional anti-dumping duties (from 9% to 13%) on imports of Chinese steel bar used for reinforced concrete. However, Eurofer does not believe that the level of these taxes is sufficient to deter China from wider dumping.
“The provisional measures - as low as 9% - cannot remedy the massive injury caused by Chinese high fatigue performance (HFP) rebar import surges, which have captured 46% of the EU market from zero in less than two years”, Eurofer stated on Monday 1 February.
Although the Commission found that Chinese HFP rebar has been sold on the European market at a dumping price of over 66%, the anti-dumping duties imposed are only a fraction of the dumping margin due to the 'lesser duty rule', which means the EU reduces the level of its anti-dumping duties if the level of injury caused by the dumping is lower than the level of the dumping, Eurofer states.
“The same HFP anti-dumping investigation in the USA would have led to the imposition of measures of up to 66%, reflecting the anti-dumping levels without any downward adjustment (…) Duties as low as 9% are a drop in the Yellow Sea in terms of safeguarding EU industry from the flood of unfair imports from China”, Eurofer underlines.
According to Eurofer, this case should be examined in the wider context of the EU granting China market economy status - which would make it more difficult for the EU to calculate deterrent anti-dumping tariffs on unfairly traded Chinese goods.
Abandoning the 'lesser duty rule' (as proposed by the Commission at the last review of the EU's trade defence instruments) when the exporting country imposes raw material export restrictions that create an artificial cost advantage for their exporters, would have enabled a dumping margin up to 66% to be imposed on this Chinese HFP rebar, as China imposes export restrictions on metallurgic raw material exports such as iron ore, scrap and alloys, Eurofer states.
However, this proposal has been blocked by a minority of countries at the Council, including the UK, which is the only market for this product in Europe, Eurofer deplores. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)