US Department of Commerce officially extends SIMA today
The US Department of Commerce (DOC) today published its interim final rule to implement the Steel Import Monitoring and Analysis (SIMA) system originally outlined in the Bush administration's March 5, 2002, proclamation on steel safeguard measures. On December 31, 2002, the DOC published its final rule to implement SIMA. The system was part of several safeguard measures pertaining to certain steel products. SIMA went into effect on February 1, 2003. On December 4, 2003, the Bush administration announced the termination of steel safeguard measures, but also directed the DOC to continue SIMA until March 21, 2005. The new SIMA system, which takes effect Friday, March 11, 2005, will remain in effect for four years. SIMA aims to provide steel producers, steel consumers, importers and the general public with accurate and timely information on anticipated imports of certain steel products. Moreover, the SIMA system requires licenses for imports of certain steel products that were formerly under the scope of the Bush administration's safeguard measures. The DOC also decided to expand the coverage of SIMA to include all basic steel mill products. The expansion of SIMA and the licensing with respect to the newly added products will come into effect on June 9, 2005. At the same time, the DOC decided to terminate licensing with respect to certain downstream products like covered carbon and alloy flanges and pipe fittings. Licenses for those products will no longer be necessary after June 9, 2005. The new SIMA will cover ingots and steel for casting, blooms, billets and slabs, wire rods, structural shapes heavy, steel piling, plate cut lengths, plates in coils, rails standard, rails all other, railroad accessories, bars-hot rolled, bars-light shapes, bars-reinforcing, bars-cold finished, tool steel, standard pipe, oil country goods, line pipe, mechanical tubing, pressure tubing, stainless pipe & tubing, pipe & tubing non-classified, structural pipe & tubing, pipe for piling, wire drawn, black plate, tin plate, tin free steel, sheets hot rolled, sheets cold rolled, sheets & strips galvanized ht dipped, sheets & strip galvanized electrolytic, sheets & strip all other metallic CTD, sheets & strip-electrical, strip-hot rolled and strip-cold rolled.