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China has decided to extend the duration of its temporary steel safeguard measures to three years.
But industry experts said the extended measures will cover fewer products and offer higher import quotas than the present measures and will lead to a temporary surge in China's steel imports.
"China's steel imports will see a big increase immediately after the initial temporary safeguard measures expire on Wednesday. Price pressure on domestic steel makers will mount," said an official with the China Association of Iron and Steel Industries, who declined to be named.
The safeguard measures are China's first decision on such matters after its accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on December 11, 2001.
The extended safeguard measures will involve three categories of steel products: thin plate, non-grain-orientated silicon steel and cold-rolled thin stainless sheet. The products made up 40 per cent of China's total steel imports of 17 million tons in 2001, said the Investigation Bureau of Industry Injury under the State Economic and Trade Commission (SETC).
An official with the Fair Trade Bureau for Import and Export under the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Co-operation (MOFTEC) said quotas for these products are no less than the average of China's imports in the previous three years and imports that exceed the quotas will be hit with extra tariffs.
She said the details of the formal safeguard measures will be announced tomorrow.
Official statistics show China's imports of hot-rolled thin plate, cold-rolled thin plate, painted plate, non-grain-orientated silicon steel and cold-rolled stainless thin plate averaged 2.72 million tons, 5.21 million tons, 0.5 million tons, 0.61 million tons and 0.54 million tons in the last three years respectively.
The temporary safeguard measures were introduced in May in response to the US steel tariffs of 8 per cent to 30 per cent initiated in March, which triggered a new round of trade protectionism in the steel industry around the world.
On May 20, 2002, MOFTEC and SETC made investigations into 11 categories of steel products, or 73 per cent of China's total steel imports in 2001.
The temporary safeguard measures, announced on May 24, involve 9 categories of steel products, or 59 per cent of China's total steel imports in 2001, and will expire on November 20.
Some steel products are excluded from the extended safeguard measures under the petition of lower-stream users or because China doesn't produce them, or Chinese steel makers are competitive in these low value-added products, or China has had high anti-dumping tariffs on them, said industry experts.
The MOFTEC official said that on November 1, 2002, the government notified the WTO, the Republic of Korea, Japan, Russia, Germany and other concerning parties of its investigations and arbitration.
The official said Japan has appealed to the WTO's trade dispute settlement body regarding China's formal steel safeguard measures.
The products from developing countries and regions, except for some from Malaysia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, are exempt from the safeguard measures.
(China Daily November 18, 2002)
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