Posted on 29 Mar 2019
European steelmakers' association Eurofer and umbrella trade union organisation IndustriALL have sent a letter to the European trade commissioner Cecilia Malmström on the subject of stainless steel imports. The bodies are requesting that stainless steel HRC and CRC be included in regional safeguard measures, Kallanish learns from the official letter.
Developing countries' members of the WTO are not included in the safeguard system as long as their share of imports does not exceed 3%. Indonesia has therefore not been included in the measures, but the associations indicate that the massive rise in imports in 2018 should mean swift action.
“With regard to stainless steel hot rolled flat products, Indonesia moved from 0% import share in 2017 to an astonishing 10.1% import share in 2018. More worryingly, Indonesian import share soared up to 18.2% if considering the second half of 2018 only,” the organisations say in the letter.
The associations point out that Indonesia is rapidly developing its production “... thanks to interference from subsidised Chinese state-owned steel companies and Indonesian domestic subsidies”.
“As a result, The EU stainless steel industry, representing more than 100,000 direct, indirect and induced jobs, saw its deliveries to the EU market drop significantly (-5.3% y-o-y in the second half of 2018) and its base prices falling by -30%, with considerable negative consequences on the sector’s margins,” the letter states.
The first review of the measures in place is due to be carried out in July this year, but Eurofer and IndustriALL believe action should be taken earlier to preserve jobs in Europe.
