Steel companies want to delay steel subsidy talks

Steel companies want to delay steel subsidy talks

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Deputy Secretary General announced at the meeting held recently with the participation of officials from 37 countries that US, European Union (EU) and other steel producing nations plan to delay steel subsidy talks till at least next year. As previously reported by SteelOrbis, the talks were delayed twice before due to disagreement among countries on certain issues. The officials from 37 countries, producing 90% of steel in the world have been in negotiations since 2001 to ban steel subsidies. Next round of talks regarding the agreement on steel subsidies were scheduled to take place in September. However, participant nations object to the September deadline for the agreement as no compromise has been reached on certain issues so far, such as which countries should be excluded from subsidy bans and for how long. It seems that the talks will continue after September 2004.