Egypt’s Supreme Administrative court has finally carried out the decision in the steel safeguard case during the session on October 12, having largely supported the positions of the Ministry of Industry and Trade and local steelmakers.
In particular, the court has chosen to overrule the decision to suspend the 15 percent duty on the square billet imports, which was taken by the Administrative court back in July and was later on appealed against by the local mills. As a result, the appeals of the local re-rolling mills, who insisted that the duty on import semis damages their business, were rejected. The decision of the Supreme Administrative court came right after the Ministry’s final ruling in the safeguard case, according to which the duty was set at 16 percent (or minimum $74/mt) until April 11 next year. In the next two years, the tariff will be reduced to 13 percent (or minimum $60/mt) and 10 percent (or minimum $46/mt), respectively, as SteelOrbis reported earlier. “The decision clearly favours the steel producers, but the five big players alone represent 8-9 million mt out of 12 million mt, so they are the majority,” a local source said.
The re-rollers in Egypt naturally disagree with such court decision, saying that it will result in sizeable losses and increased pressure on their business activities. In particular, some of them comment the cost of rebar production will increase by EGP 1,500-2,000/mt (around $95-125/mt), which can result in some facilities’ stoppages. Moreover, according to the re-rollers, the court decision means that the safeguard duty has to be paid for the imports, done within the previous six months. As a result Egypt’s re-rollers are planning to again appeal to the court against the duties’ implementation.