Successful lobbying results in EU anti-dumping duties on SSCR imports

02/04/2015 12:00 - 557 Views

The European Commission has imposed provisional anti-dumping duties of up to 25.2% on stainless steel cold-rolled flat (SSCR) imports from PR China and 12.9% on SSCR imports from Taiwan following a complaint filed by Eurofer. IndustriAll Europe also sent a strong letter to the Commission in support of anti-dumping measures. The Commission’s investigation confirmed that imports of SSCR from the two countries were being sold at dumped prices, causing significant damage to the EU stainless steel industry. An anti-subsidy investigation against SSCR imports from China is also underway.

The original complaint was filed by a number of European steel producers in May 2014, who stated that with an average EU price undercutting of 10.5% the increasing dumped imports from China and Taiwan did not allow the EU industry to maintain its market share or become profitable. The EU stainless steel industry has made painful efforts in recent years to restructure, reduce over-capacities and improve performance and competitiveness, but the surge in unfair imports meant that there was little return for these efforts.

In its letter to the Commission, industriAll Europe set out our concerns for employment in the EU stainless steel industry - which has already had to reduce capacity and shed jobs as a result of the economic crisis - in the light of the dramatic increase in imports from China and Taiwan. It also underlined the huge efforts made by the industry to remain competitive worldwide and improve its technological and environmental performance. Most importantly, IndustriAll Europe called for fast reaction from the EU to prevent the dumped imports having a dramatic impact on employment, stating that more job losses would be inevitable if the Chinese and Taiwanese unfair trade practices were not disciplined. It urged the Commission to uphold its anti-dumping rules and protect the European social model from unfair social dumping.

The European Commission has also been conducting an anti-subsidy investigation against SSCR imports from China since 14 August 2014 and the provisional results should be made known in two months‘ time.

Source: industriall-europe.eu