Reposted from Steel Business Briefing

*****

EC Set To Confirm Chinese Subsidies On Coated Sheet: Eurofer

January 16, 2013 | Steel Business Briefing

The European Commission is expected to confirm officially by March that China has been subsidising the local organic coated sheet production, Gordon Moffat, director general of Eurofer, told Platts on Tuesday.

The Commission has investigated the unfair trade case filed by Eurofer at the beginning of 2012, which claimed to have “overwhelming evidence” that the surges of imports of Chinese organic coated sheet/coils (OCS) into the EU were the result of subsidy and “specific government support programmes”.

Moffat said the Commission has found that the case is correct and that such subsidies exist; this will lead to the imposition of additional countervailing duties on this product by March this year, which will be added to the provisional anti-dumping duties imposed by the EC in September 2012.

According to Moffat, this decision represents the first time the EC acknowledges the existence of such subsidies in the Chinese steel industry; nevertheless he stressed that this decision covers only OCS products, and that it will not have an impact on all metals imports from China into Europe.

Currently Chinese OCS producers are subjected, on average, to a 42.5% import duty when selling in the EU, as a result of the imposition of the provisional duties in September 2012. As a result of the anti-dumping measure organic coated sheets import licence applications in the EU went down to zero since October 2012, according to Eurofer data.