New dumping duties imposed by China on imported steel

The Ministry of Commerce ( MOFCOM) said on Sunday morning that it has imposed anti- dumping tariffs on imported electrical steel products from Japan, South Korea and the EU.

The MOFCOM imposed duties ranging from 37.3 percent to 46.3 percent on grain- oriented flat- rolled products of electrical steel ( GOES) from those sources effective Saturday, according to a post on its website on Sunday. The duties will be in effect for five years.

In May 2015, the European Commission set provisional tariffs of 21.6 percent to 35.9 percent on imports of GOES from markets including China, Reuters said in September 2015.

GOES is a highly specialized product used by power producers and distributors to produce transformer cores, and it’s made by only 16 producers worldwide, including ArcelorMittal, Stalprodukt, Tata Steel and ThyssenKrupp in Europe, according to Reuters.

There have been dumping practices involving those imported products, which affected China’s electrical steel industry, MOFCOM noted in Sunday’s post.

The number of anti- dumping and anti- subsidy investigations has been increasing since the beginning of 2016, and the protectionism has impeded the growth of global trade, independent academic think tank Glob- al Trade Alert stated on Wednesday.

There were 36 anti- dumping investigations into Chinese steelmakers in 2015, double the 2014 number, Reuters reported in April, citing data from the China Iron and Steel Association.

The domestic steel industry has been slashing excess capacity since the beginning of 2016, with a target of reducing output by 15 percent in the next five years, media reported in July.