On March 20, the antidumping (AD) duty on imports of stainless flat rolled products from the European Union (EU) member states, imposed by the government of Russian Federation, expired.
As SteelOrbis previously reported, the AD duty in the amount of € 0.84 per kg of stainless flat rolled products with nickel content of 2.5 percent or higher was imposed by Russia on February 20, 2007, for a period of three years.
The duty impacted the products under the following HS Codes: 7219 11 000 0, 7219 12 100 0, 7219 21 100 9, 7219 22 100 9, 7219 23 000 9, 7219 24 000 9, 7219 31 000 0, 7219 32 100 9, 7219 33 100 9, 7219 34 100 9, 7219 35 100 0, 7219 90 200 0, 7219 90 800 9, 7220 11 000 9, 7220 12 000 0, 7220 20 210 0, 7220 20 410 0, 7220 20 810 0, 7220 90 200 0, 7220 90 800 0.
"Now European producers get an opportunity to reactivate their full-fledged stainless business in the Russian market without fearing a repeated antidumping investigation," the Russian Special Steel and Alloys Consumers and Suppliers Association (Spetsstal) commented.
In 2006, Russia imported about 99,700 metric tons of stainless flat rolled steel, the majority of which came from the EU, with domestic consumption totaling 144,000 metric tons.
"After the imposition of the antidumping duty, most import tonnages of the stainless steel products in question started to be sourced from Southeast Asia, Brazil and South Africa. And the new overseas suppliers managed to perfectly satisfy the strongly affected demand in stainless steel in the Russian market," Spetsstal stated.
According to Spetsstal, in the period from 2006 till 2009, Russia's output of flat rolled stainless steel slumped from 52,840 mt to 44,010 mt, while its exports fell from 7,470 mt to only 2,890 mt. As before, the Russian market was lacking Russian-origin stainless steel with high finish 2В and ВА, while the locally produced product assortment and grade mix did not increase either.
Meanwhile, on March 27, 2009, Russia initiated another antidumping investigation against imports of nickel-bearing stainless steel flat rolled products, from Brazil, South Africa, South Korea, China and Taiwan. The investigation is expected to be concluded on March 27, 2010, with the results to be announced shortly after this date.
"There is no sense in restricting supplies from the abovementioned countries while at the same time letting in EU countries. And it is no secret that the problem of the so-called dumping consists in the deliberate depreciation of the customs value of imported stainless steel products at Russia's border. If the initiators really wanted to prove dumping on the part of the overseas producers, the only thing they had to do is to compare export price declarations at foreign customs with import price declarations at the Russian border," Spetsstal commented.