Posted on 28 Jan 2015
The European Commission renewed duties on certain types of welded steel tubes and pipes from Russia, Belarus and China on Tuesday in a bid to protect producers like ArcelorMittal and Tata Steel from unfair competition.
It decided, however, not to re-impose tariffs against imports of the same products from Ukraine, citing reasons including the country's limited capacity to produce more of the product concerned.
In an official notice, the Commission, the EU executive, said it would impose tariffs of 90.6 percent on Chinese exports of the products, 38.1 percent on Belarus exports and 20.5 percent on Russian exports.
It qualified, however, that Russian steelmaker TMK would face duties of 16.8 percent while its rival OMK would face duties of 10.1 percent. The duties on the countries, including Ukraine, were originally imposed in 2008.
"The (EU tube and pipe) industry is still in a very fragile situation. Exporters in each of the three countries concerned have the spare capacity to increase their exports very rapidly," the Commission said in the official journal.
It concluded from its year-long investigation that such a scenario would be likely if the anti-dumping measures against Russia, Belarus and China, but not against Ukraine, were allowed to lapse.
The Commission said that thanks to its duties, imports from the three countries concerned fell 60 percent from around 7,000 tonnes in 2010 to around 2,900 tonnes in the year to September 2013.
This equates to 1.3 percent of the EU market for welded tubes and pipes in 2010, versus 0.7 percent in the year to September 2013.
