Transition Review TF0006 – Safeguard Measures on Certain Steel Products
Late on Wednesday the Government published the latest review of Steel Safeguarding measures which are proposed to be in place for the next 3 years.
This is a 100plus page review following a 6 month investigation.
The following points are the salient ones for our industry:
- Product Number 14: Stainless Bars and Light Sections has been recommended to be revoked, with no safeguarding measures after 30th June 2021.
- Product Number 25A: Large Welded tubes has been recommended to be revoked, with no safeguarding measures after 30th June 2021.
- Product Number 25B: Large Welded tubes has been recommended to be revoked, with no safeguarding measures after 30th June 2021.
It has been recommended that safeguarding measures remain for the following categories:
- Product Group 13: Rebars
- Product Group 15: Stainless Wire Rod
- Product Group 21: HOLLOW SECTIONS, although this has been revised to only be EU and Turkey.
- Product Group 26: Other Welded Pipes: revised to remove “other countries”.
Definition of Residual Quotas:
Paragraph 158. Countries that have exhausted their country-specific quota in a given product category and period can access the remaining residual quota for that product category in the last quarter of each year without any restrictions (no caps). The need to introduce caps on the residual quota use by countries with a country-specific quota could not be confirmed by TRID due to lack of data that might evidence that countries with country specific quotas rapidly exhaust residual quotas during the last quarter, thereby crowding out traditional import flows from other origins.
We only have until 5PM Wednesday 26th May to make any comments so a fast response would be appreciated should you wish to raise and issues.
Just an additional comment from me:
I was disappointed that stainless steel was not removed from Product Groups 21 and 26 as home production is limited. The review raised the following comments about these sections in paragraphs 295 & 296 on pages 84 & 85. I would recommend reading the complete section of the document:
- For all other product categories (1, 2, 4, 5, 13, 15, 19, 20, 21 and 26), we recognise that there are some potentially significant negative impacts as summarised above, but do not consider them to outweigh or be disproportionate to 84 the more significant positive impacts. The main reasons for this are that the available evidence shows that:
- extending the measures would prevent the likelihood of serious injury to the economically significant steel sector facing a challenging global market;
- that injury could include potential adverse impacts on jobs in the steel sector resulting from the measures being revoked, which would be concentrated in economically deprived areas of the UK; and
- the ability to import within the quota amount without needing to pay the 25% out-of-quota safeguarding amount would limit the increased costs faced by downstream users and importers, and help maintain historical trade flows of steel products.
- Having considered all of the evidence presented by interested parties and all of the factors listed in the legislation, we have concluded that the EIT is met for product categories 1, 2, 4, 5, 13, 15, 19, 20, 21 and 26, but not for product category 25B. It is therefore recommended that this category is removed from the coverage of the extended steel safeguard measures.
I propose to make additional comments regarding the inclusion of stainless in Product Group 21 and 26.
Should anyone who has already contributed directly to TRID please do so again, or send your comments to me and I will respond to TRID.
Rob Cooper, BSSA
Statement of Intended Preliminary Decision TF0006 – Safeguard measures on certain steel products (1)
