Morocco's Ministry of Industry, Trade and New Technologies has announced that it has extended the safeguard duty on imports of cold rolled and coated sheet on the grounds that such imports seriously harm the local steel industry. Accordingly, a 36,000 mt per year quota has been determined until the end of 2019 and will be changed every year until the end of 2021. In case of violation, a 16 percent additional duty will be imposed on the violator.
As previously reported by SteelOrbis, the safeguard duty was first issued in 2015 following the complaint made by domestic steel producer Maghreb Steel, to remain in effect until January 2019, with duty rates standing at 22 percent in 2015, 20 percent in 2016, 18 percent in 2017 and 16 percent in 2018.
According to the ministry’s statement, the products subject to the safeguard measure currently fall under Customs Tariff Statistics Position Numbers 7209, 7210, 7211, 7212, 7225, and 7226 with some exceptions.