The Egyptian authorities have decided to continue protecting their domestic market from rebar imports and have extended the validity of the antidumping duties which were imposed back in 2017.
As a result, Egypt declared that the AD restrictions will be valid for another 12 months, effective from June 6 this year. As per the previous investigation, Chinese steel is subject to 29 percent tax, while rebar from Turkey is restricted by 7-22.8 percent duty depending on the mill. The duty on Ukrainian origin rebar is 17.2-27 percent.
China has been not interested in distant rebar sales for a while now and Ukraine is currently out of the market due to war-related issues. Although AMKR has partly restored operations, the mill remains mainly focused on securing its raw material needs and rerouting logistics to European destinations. For now, according to sources’ expectations, Ukraine is to focus on small rebar cargoes to the EU rather than North African markets. As a result, Turkey remains the most affected in terms of rebar sales to Egypt, which was once one of the largest outlets for Turkish mills.
While protected from strong rebar imports, Egypt remains open to billet supplies. In November last year, Egypt decided to suspend the safeguard on square billet, aiming to decrease rebar production costs for local mills. During several months, Egypt was buying at least 100,000-150,000 mt of billet from Ukraine, Iran and Russia. However, with the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Egypt faced certain supply disruptions. Later, surviving the government decision to make LCs obligatory which was then cancelled, Egypt resumed buying billet from Russia despite the financial, operational and reputational risks.