It is reported that the antidumping duty on imports of stainless flat rolled products from the European Union member states, imposed by the government of Russian Federation, expired on March 20th 2010.

As per report, the AD duty in the amount of EUR 0.84 per kilogram of stainless flat rolled products with nickel content of 2.5% or higher was imposed by Russia on February 20th 2007 for a period of three years.

The duty impacted the products under the following HS Codes: 7219 11 000 0, 7219 12 100 0, 7219 21 100 9, 7219 22 100 9, 7219 23 000 9, 7219 24 000 9, 7219 31 000 0, 7219 32 100 9, 7219 33 100 9, 7219 34 100 9, 7219 35 100 0, 7219 90 200 0, 7219 90 800 9, 7220 11 000 9, 7220 12 000 0, 7220 20 210 0, 7220 20 410 0, 7220 20 810 0, 7220 90 200 0, 7220 90 800 0.

Russian Special Steel and Alloys Consumers & Suppliers Association said that "Now European producers get an opportunity to reactivate their full-fledged stainless business in the Russian market without fearing a repeated antidumping investigation."

In 2006, Russia imported about 99,700 tonnes of stainless flat rolled steel, the majority of which came from the EU, with domestic consumption totaling 144,000 tonnes.

Spetsstal added that "After the imposition of the antidumping duty, most import tonnages of the stainless steel products in question started to be sourced from Southeast Asia, Brazil and South Africa. And the new overseas suppliers managed to perfectly satisfy the strongly affected demand in stainless steel in the Russian market."

According to Spetsstal, in the period from 2006 till 2009, Russia's output of flat rolled stainless steel slumped from 52,840 tonnes to 44,010 tonnes, while its exports fell from 7,470 tonnes to only 2,890 tonnes. As before, the Russian market was lacking Russian origin stainless steel with high finish 2? and ??, while the locally produced product assortment and grade mix did not increase either.

Meanwhile, on March 25th 2009, Russia initiated another antidumping investigation against imports of nickel bearing stainless steel flat rolled products, from Brazil, South Africa, South Korea, China and Taiwan. The investigation concluded on March 25th 2010, and the results are expected to be announced shortly.

Spetsstal commented that "There is no sense in restricting supplies from the abovementioned countries while at the same time letting in EU countries. And it is no secret that the problem of the so called dumping consists in the deliberate depreciation of the customs value of imported stainless steel products at Russia's border. If the initiators really wanted to prove dumping on the part of the overseas producers, the only thing they had to do is to compare export price declarations at foreign customs with import price declarations at the Russian border."

from www.steelorbis.com

30 Mar, 2010

Source: steelprices-india.com