The European Commission has announced that it has initiated a countervailing duty (CVD) investigation against certain hot rolled product imports from Turkey. The investigation was launched upon the complaint by the European Steel Association (EUROFER) and will cover the period between January 1, 2019 and December 31, 2019.
The provisional measures are expected to be announced within nine months, while the definitive measures are scheduled to be announced within 13 months, at the latest.
Turkish mills are clearly unhappy with the EU’s decision, although they admit that AD and CVD investigations are normally coupled once local market protection is sought. No immediate effect is expected price-wise in the nine-month period; however, a lot of players are concerned with how Turkey may retaliate next week. “This looks more and more like a trade war and Turkey was not the one to start it. If we are unable to sell to our key export market, clearly the government needs to place a significant limitation on imports, coming from the EU but also the CIS,” a major trader told SteelOrbis.
Additionally, an antidumping investigation against the same product from Turkey was also initiated last month, beside the recent modification in EU import quotas. Accordingly, hot rolled coil products which are currently subject to the global quota will be subject to country-specific quotas as of July 1, as previously reported by SteelOrbis. The country-specific quota will apply to those countries whose level of imports reached at least five percent of imports in the 2015-17 period, and the residual global quota will be valid for the rest.
The products subject to the CVD investigation currently fall under Customs 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, 7225 19 10, 7225 30 90, 7225 40 60, 7225 40 90, 7226 19 10, 7226 91 91 and 7226 91 99.