China holds most ferrous, non ferrous export taxes

China's central government has refrained from imposing new export taxes on steel-related products in its latest adjustment of import and export taxes, Mysteel noted from the announcement of the State Taxation Administration (STA) on December 15.

As a normal practice, Beijing announces import and export tax adjustments around this time every year, with any new taxes becoming effective on January 1 of the coming year.

In the STA's announcement, Beijing decided to maintain existing export taxes on 104 items on its list in a variety of categories including ferrous and non-ferrous metals products such as pig iron, ferrochrome, steel scrap, and non-ferrous products such as aluminium bar, sheet and strip.

However, it has raised export taxes on two items, namely phosphorous and blister copper.

Wednesday's announcement means that the 40% tax on steel scrap exports will continue to be levied next year, Mysteel Global notes. On the other hand, no new taxes will be imposed on steel product exports - a possibility that had made the STA's announcement much-awaited and closely watched by China's steel industry participants.

Regarding the two commodities whose taxes are to be raised, the central government decided to lift these to "promote industrial transformation and upgrading, and the high-quality development of related industries," the announcement said. The tax on blister copper will be raised from 15% to 30% from the beginning of the next year.

~Written by Olivia Zhang, zhangwd@mysteel.com

~This article has been published under an article exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and SteelMint.