During the Traders' Committee session at the SteelOrbis Fall 2013 Conference and 69th IREPAS Meeting held in Istanbul on September 22-24, the possibility of an antidumping (AD) investigation being launched in the US against wire rod imports was discussed.
While China and Turkey are the main wire rod import sources for the US, Bernd Neuenkirchen from Coutinho & Ferrostaal International stated that, if an AD duty is implemented in the US on imported wire rod, it will only affect China as China's wire rod exports to the US in the first nine months this year have exceeded the 400,000 mt mark. Turkey, on the other hand, is unlikely to be impacted by any investigation since, in order to launch an AD investigation against a source country, imports from the source have to account for at least three percent of total imports coming into the country, which is not the case for Turkish wire rod exports to the US. During his speech, Mr. Neuenkirchen indicated that generally imports from China are categorized as alloy bar and that China exports more mesh quality wire rod to the US, while Turkey generally exports drawing quality wire rod to the same destination.