Brussels, 13/05/2016 (Agence Europe) - On Friday 13 May, the European Commission announced the opening of anti-subsidy proceedings concerning imports of certain hot-rolled flat products of iron, non-alloy or other alloy steel originating in China. These products are already the subject of an anti-dumping investigation opened in February (see EUROPE 11489).
“In both cases [the anti-dumping investigation and the anti-subsidy investigation], the Commission decided to act early, motivated by the threat that continuation of imports under current conditions might cause economic damage to the EU industry, which presented the triggering the investigation”, the Commission commented, stating that the use of an exceptional procedural approach, based on “the threat of damage”, allows measures to be taken without having to wait for the proof of real injury.
This new procedure “is part of the Commission's commitment to make full use of the available trade defence instruments to restor fair trading conditions for the European steel sector, affected by the global production overcapacity”, the Commission states.
The Commission has up to nine months to establish whether the conditions are met for imposing temporary countervailing duties on imports of Chinese hot-rolled flat products.
With this latest decision, the EU now has 10 ongoing trade defence investigations into imports of steel products, in addition to 37 anti-dumping and anti-subsidy measures that are already in place. Seven of these investigations and 15 of the measures concern Chinese steel products. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)