The Turkish Steel Producers' Association (TCUD) has said that European Steel Association (EUROFER) filed a complaint on May 4 with the European Commission for the launch of an antidumping (AD) duty investigation against hot rolled coil (HRC) imports from Turkey.
Accordingly, the alleged dumping margins for the products in question range between four percent and eight percent. The Commission has 45 days to determine whether to initiate an investigation or not.
The EU already has import quotas in place on certain steel products including HRC imports from Turkey. In September 2019, the EU made some adjustments to quota volumes, imposing a limitation of 30 percent to the share of the global quota of HRC that any single exporting country can reach per quarter. Currently, the EU is again considering further changes in the quota system, including some possible volume reductions.
Turkey’s HRC market players are naturally concerned by the antidumping investigation becoming more and more probable since the EU is the key sales outlet for local Turkish producers. Sources expect that in this scenario Turkey may start its own investigation against imports in order to protect domestic mills’ share of local sales. “There are a lot of discussions on the possibility of Turkey starting an antidumping investigation against Russia as the largest HRC supplier to the country and maybe against the EU itself,” a market insider told SteelOrbis.
The products subject to the complaint 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 (TARIC code 7225.19.10.90), 7225.30.90, ex 7225.40.60 (TARIC code 7225.40.60.90), 7225.40.90, ex 7226.19.10 (TARIC code 7226.19.10.90), 7226.91.91 and 7226.91.99.