SteelOrbis has been informed that Taiwanese government has applied a new export measure on most of HR plate exports for the period of three months starting from June 2.
As per official release of the government on the issue, the policy was implemented due to strong domestic demand for plates from the Taiwanese construction market and also due to surging HR plate domestic price.
Under the new export policy, Taiwanese HR plate exporters have to apply for an export license during the abovementioned period.
However, many players in Taiwanese steel industry consider this measure to be useless as there are few free volumes of HR plates available for export in Taiwan. Just the opposite, Taiwanese domestic plate market has been experiencing material shortage for few years now. According to estimates, annual Taiwanese domestic demand for HR plates is around 1.5-1.6 million mt, while the local producers supply only around 1.2-1.3 million mt per year. Thus, each year the market requires about 300,000-400,000 mt of HR plates in imports.
The measure covers the following seven products:
7208.40.21.10-1 (any other hot rolled iron or non-alloyed steel flat products; non-coil; thickness range 4.75-50mm); 7208.51.20.00-0 (any other hot rolled iron or non-alloyed steel flat products; non-coil; thickness range 10-50mm; carbon content 0.6% and above); 7208.51.30.00-8 (any other hot rolled iron or non-alloyed steel flat products; non-coil; thickness range 10-50mm; carbon content 0.25-0.6%); 7208.51.40.00-6 (any other hot rolled iron or non-alloyed steel flat products; non-coil; thickness range 10-50mm; carbon content less than 0.25%); 7208.52.10.20-7 (any other hot rolled iron or non-alloyed steel flat products; non-coil; thickness range 6-10mm; carbon content 0.6% and above); 7208.52.20.20-5 (any other hot rolled iron or non-alloyed steel flat products; non-coil; thickness range 6-10mm; carbon content 0.25-0.6%); 7208.52.30.20-3 (any other hot rolled iron or non-alloyed steel flat products; non-coil; thickness range 6-10mm; carbon content less than 0.25%).