The Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) has announced that it has decided to launch an antidumping (AD) investigation into the import of 426 mm cold rolled and hot rolled seamless pipes of stainless steel produced in Ukraine. The EEC is a single permanent regulatory body for the Customs Union of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia and the Single Economic Space (SES) of the Eurasian Economic Community (Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan).
"In 2011 to 2013, stainless steel pipes from Ukraine made up 27.1 percent to 31.1 percent of all stainless steel pipes imported to the EEC countries. In the first half of 2014, the share of Ukraine-made pipes of all pipe imports reached 50 percent. In the period under review, the prices for stainless steel seamless pipes from Ukraine were lower than the prices offered by manufacturers from the EEC countries. According to preliminary estimates, from 1 July 2013 to 30 June 2014, the margin of dumping of Ukrainian pipes amounted to 11.3 percent," the EEC stated.
Since mid-2013, the price war in the EEC market was aggravated amid dumping from Ukraine. In order to maintain the competitiveness of their products amid slack demand, companies from the EEC had to suppress prices for their products. Thus, in the first half of 2014, prices were reduced by 1.5 percent, while prime cost rose by 11.5 percent. This affected the financial standing of the companies and their profits shrank by 3.3 times.