The European Commission has confirmed this week the imposition of definitive duties on HRC imported from China. The duties imposed are slightly higher than the provisional measures announced in October last year.

Concluding the investigation started in February 2016, the EC imposed definitive duties of between 18.1% and 35.9% on Chinese HRC. Material originating from the Hegang group mills is set to be the less-penalised, Kallanish understands.

In its document confirming the duties, the EC noted that volumes of Chinese dumped material in Europe began to decrease after the investigations had started. The January-July average monthly import volume for China was well above 128,000 tonnes/month. The level then decreased to just below 100,000 t/month in the second half of 2016.

As reported, definitive plate import duties for Chinese material were also confirmed at the end of February this year.

The confirmation of definitive import duties for Chinese HRC comes after the EC informed last week that provisional duties on imports of HRC from Russia, Brazil, Iran, Ukraine and Serbia would not be imposed.

In a comment on the announcement sent to Kallanish, Gareth Stace, director of trade organisation UK Steel, said, “This is a welcome decision by the Commission given the continued efforts by China to undermine European steelmakers by dumping cheap steel on to the market. So long as China avoids taking steps to tackle its own issues with overcapacity and, fails to adhere to the principle of free trade which is the lifeblood of the steel sector then such duties are going to be necessary to ensure we don’t pay the price here in the UK and across Europe.”