It has been reported that the Russian Governmental Commission for Foreign Trade Safeguard Measures and Customs-tariff Policy is currently considering the proposal of one of the largest Russian automobile producers AutoVaz regarding the cancellation of the five percent duty in place for imports of auto sheets.
AutoVaz's proposal has received support from other domestic car producers such as GAZ and Severstal-Auto. The automobile producers argue that, with the establishment of new joint ventures with foreign automobile manufacturers in Russia which use imported car sheets in production, the market needs free imports of the product in question since there is only a limited volume produced in Russia.
Currently, the only producer of high quality car sheets in Russia is Severstal's subsidiary Severgal, which has an annual production capacity of 400,000 metric tons.