The European Commission (EC) has confirmed the imposition of countervailing duties on Chinese hot rolled coil, following the conclusion of an anti-subsidy investigation initiated in March 2016, Kallanish learns from an official statement.

The countervailing duties will be added to the existing 18.1%-35.9% anti-dumping measures already in place on Chinese HRC. The anti-subsidy duties have been confirmed at as low as 4.6% for products from Zhangjiagang and as much as 35.9% for a number of other companies.

The investigation, initiated following a complaint from Eurofer, “…established that the Chinese government is supporting its steel industry through considerable subsidies, including preferential lending, tax rebates and other financial injections,” EC says.

This is the first time EU authorities have directly tackled subsidies from the Chinese government.

As reported, further actions from the European Commission could be expected this year related to HRC imports. There is still an ongoing investigation against imports of such goods from Brazil, Ukraine, Serbia, Iran and Russia.