Turkey imposes quota-tariff system on imports

21/09/2018 12:00 - 425 Views

Turkey has imposed a provisional 25% safeguard duty on imports of carbon steel flat and long products, welded and seamless pipe, stainless flats and special steel longs exceeding a prescribed duty-free quota. The tariff is valid for 200 days.

Imports of products under HS code headings 7208, 7209, 7210, 7211, 7212, 7225 and 7226 have been set a combined annual duty-free quota of 3.118 million tonnes. Those under HS code headings 7213, 7214, 7215, 7216, 7217, 7227 and 7228 have a quota of 558,534t, while those under codes 7303, 7304, 7305 and 7306 have a quota of 273,901t. Imports under codes 7219 and 7220 have a 139,934t quota.

Some of the products in question are already levied with trade barriers. These include 16.89-22.5% anti-dumping duties on some flats from China and $100-120/t AD duties on seamless pipe from China.

The duty imposition follows a report from Turkey’s customs and trade ministry that concluded growing global steel industry protectionism has made it more likely for Turkey’s steel industry to suffer injury from imports. This came after Turkey launched a safeguard investigation into imports last April (see Kallanish passim).

Imports of the products under investigation were found to have reached 10.6 million tonnes in 2017 versus 10.2mt in 2013. Imports of flats rose 5% over this period to 8.39mt and pipe imports grew 17% to 506,000t, but longs imports fell -4% to 1.32mt and stainless steel intake dropped -10% to 332,000t. With consumption of 25mt, imports took a 41% share of Turkey’s market in 2013, while in 2017 consumption was 31mt and import market share fell to 34%.

Domestic capacity was at 31.46m tonnes/year in 2013 and utilisation at 77%, while in 2017 capacity was 43.31m t/y and utilisation at 74%. The latter is considered a “… sustainable capacity utilisation rate,” according to the ministry’s report. Year-end stocks were at 1.64mt and 1.83mt in 2013 and 2017 respectively.

Flats imports are likely to be hardest hit by the new measure since Turkey imports more flats than any other steel product category. In January-July Turkey imported 2.63mt of hot rolled flats under HS code 7208, 512,600t of cold rolled flats under HS code 7209 and 513,296t of coated flats under HS code 7210. Russia is the largest supplier of the first two categories, while South Korea supplies the most coated coil.

Nevertheless, seven-month flats imports fell -1% to 4.9mt but longs imports rose 7.5% to 895,000t.
September 20, 2019
Source: Kallanish
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