The European Union imposed tariffs as high as 24.6 percent on wire rod from China and Moldova to help EU producers such as ArcelorMittal, Corus Group and Feralpi Siderurgica SpA compete against cheaper imports, Bloomberg reported.
The duties punish Chinese and Moldovan exporters for selling wire rod in the EU below cost, a practice known as dumping. The levies cover about 310 million euros ($400 million) of imports last year of the product, which is used in construction.
EU producers suffered "material injury" as a result of the dumped imports, the European Commission, the 27-nation EU's regulatory arm in Brussels, said today in the Official Journal. The duties, which will take effect tomorrow for six months, are 24.6 percent against all Chinese manufacturers except Valin Group, which faces an 8.6 percent levy, and 3.7 percent against Moldovan exporters.
Steel is a potential friction point in European-Chinese relations amid four EU dumping investigations covering imports of the metal from China. The three other cases involve galvanized steel, stainless steel and steel wires.
China and Moldova increased their combined share of the EU wire-rod market to 6.3 percent in the 12 months through March 2008 from 1.4 percent in 2004, according to the commission. This is the preliminary result of an inquiry opened in May 2008 that also covers Turkey, which is being spared the trade protection because the commission found no price undercutting by Turkish exporters.
After the start of trade probes, the commission has nine months to decide whether to impose provisional anti-dumping duties for half a year and EU governments have 15 months to choose whether to apply "definitive" levies for five years. In the other steel cases involving China, the commission refrained from imposing provisional levies on galvanized and stainless steel and introduced provisional duties as high as 52.2 percent on steel wire.
The galvanized-steel case may be on the verge of ending. European steel industry lobby group Eurofer has withdrawn its dumping complaint and the commission has announced a plan to close the investigation.