July, target date for new EU-Russia pact
By early July,
Russia and the EU will reportedly have signed a new trade pact. The three-year bilateral trade agreement between the two nations was signed by both sides in April. This new pact will allow up to 1.2 million tons of Russian steel products into the EU in 2002. This excludes a new category - alloyed products which has a quota of 90,000 tons. This is an increase of about 37% from 2001.
Sources say these figures already take into account a 12.5% cut in quotas, put in place by the EU in response to
Russia's duty on
scrap exports. The prices could move up further if duty is removed. The new Russian quota includes 259,000 tons of
HRC; 485,000 tons of
HRC for rerolling; 60,000 tons of heavy
plate; 80,000 tons of other flat products. Quotas for
longs is 240,000 tons.