Russian steelmaker Severstal’s CEO Vadim Larin has stated that Severstal started buying Chinese cold rolled (CR) flat steel products for its steel service centers and exported the goods to the European Union instead of Russian steel because the EU antidumping (AD) duties on Chinese products are much lower, according to a Reuters report.
In August this year, the European Commission (EC) imposed antidumping duties ranging between 19.7 percent and 22.1 percent for China and between 18.7 percent and 36.1 percent for Russia for a period of five years. The antidumping duty rate for imports of Severstal’s cold rolled flat steel products stands at 34 percent.
Regarding the European Commission’s antidumping duty investigation on hot rolled steel products imported from Brazil, Iran, Russia, Serbia and Ukraine, Severstal’s CEO said that if the duties are imposed it will affect the company’s margins and they will have to move volumes from Europe to farther regions.