EU Imposes Definitive Countervailing Duties on Imports of Chinese HRC

European Union (EU) has recently notified imposition of definitive countervailing duties on imports of certain hot-rolled flat products of iron, non-alloy or other alloy steel originating in the People's Republic of China and amending Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/649 imposing a definitive anti-dumping duty on imports of goods of same grade originating in the People's Republic of China.

Why there arose need to amend the previous anti-dumping regulation ?

In view of the use of the lesser duty rule, and the fact that the definitive amounts of countervailable subsidies expressed on ad valorem basis were lower than the injury elimination level, the Commission suggested to impose the definitive countervailing duty at the level of the established definitive amounts of countervailable subsidies and then impose the definitive anti-dumping duty up to the relevant injury elimination level.

On the basis of the conclusions reached by the Commission on subsidy, threat of injury, causation and Union interest, definitive anti-subsidy measures should be imposed to prevent the imminent threat of material injury which is caused to the Union industry by the subsidised imports would materialise.

However, as the definitive anti-dumping regulation was already adopted on 6 Apr'17, it was necessary to amend that regulation to take account of the findings.

Imposition of definitive countervailing duty - A definitive countervailing duty is imposed on imports of certain flat-rolled products of iron, non-alloy steel or other alloy steel. The product concerned does not include stainless steel, high speed steel, products not in coils of thickness exceeding 10 mm and of a width of 600 mm or more.

Link to countervailing duty notification

Indian flat steel exporters to be benefited - This move is likely to benefit Indian HRC exporters as supplies from China (a major flat steel exporter to EU) might get restricted. According to provisional data maintained with SteelMint, European Union imported 32.14 MnT of HRC in 2016. The figure includes intra as well as inter foreign trades of European Union nations. Out of this, share from China was 1.33 MnT.