The European Commission (EC) has announced its provisional findings regarding its antidumping investigation on imports of certain iron, non-alloy or other alloy hot rolled steel from Egypt, India, Japan and Vietnam, initiated in August last year and covering the period between April 1, 2023, and March 31, 2024.
The commission has proposed provisional antidumping duties at 15.6 percent for Ezz Steel and all other Egyptian companies, 6.9 percent for Tokyo Steel, 32.0 percent for Daido Steel and JFE Steel, and 33.0 percent for Nippon Steel and all other Japanese companies, 12.1 percent for Formosa Ha Tinh Steel and all other Vietnamese companies except for Hoa Phat Dung Quat Steel. In addition, the commission did not propose a provisional duty for Indian companies as it found no dumping of imports of the given products from India, which historically has a large share of the EU market, in the given period.
Meanwhile, in October last year the commission started the registration process for imports of HRC from the given countries for a nine-month period to enable the retroactive collection of antidumping duties if necessary, as SteelOrbis previously reported.
Next week, the commission will report whether these duties will be applied retroactively or not. If they are applied retroactively, importers who have been purchasing HRC from Egypt and Japan since the beginning of the year will pay a huge bill, SteelOrbis has heard. The duties will hit Egyptian exporters hardest, while Turkey will gain an advantage as its products are subject to lower duties. In addition, Algeria’s HRC exports to the EU will gain momentum, with no duty and a short lead time. Another issue is that Malaysia and Indonesia, which are relatively new to the HRC export market globally, are not subject to any duties in the EU at the moment.
The products fall under Customs Tariff Statistics Position Numbers 7208 10 00, 7208 25 00, 7208 26 00, 7208 27 00, 7208 36 00, 7208 37 00, 7208 38 00, 7208 39 00, 7208 40 00, 7208 52 10, 7208 52 99, 7208 53 10, 7208 53 90, 7208 54 00, 7211 13 00, 7211 14 00, 7211 19 00, ex 7225 19 10, 7225 30 90, ex 7225 40 60, 7225 40 90, ex 7226 19 10, 7226 91 91, and 7226 91 99.