EU extends import restrictions on steel

According to the Trade Remedies Authority of Vietnam (TRAV), on June 2, the EU extended the safeguard action towards imported steel on tariff rate quotas (TRQ) for certain steel products for a further year, from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024).

TRAV said that Vietnam, along with other countries, was subject to quarterly TRQ for eight product groups, including hot-rolled steel plate, electrical engineering steel plate, galvanised steel plate, organic-coated steel plate, stainless cold-rolled steel plate, large steel pipes, and other steel pipes.

Vietnam is precluded from other categories of steel products based on the requirement that a developing nation have a negligible share of the import market of less than 3 per cent.

The affected nations may request discussions with the EU between June 5 and 13. If the market share of another group of steel products imported from Vietnam into the EU exceeds 3 per cent, this group will be added to the list of TRQ-applicable products during annual administrative evaluations. Moreover, Vietnam is prohibited from applying separate quotas to any group.

The European Commission (EC) maintains a quota allocation scheme that incorporates country-specific and generic quota allocations for the remainder of the nation.

The non-quota tax rate is 25 per cent. Compared to the period between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2023, the quantity of non-taxable quotas increased by an additional 4 per cent.

On March 26, 2017, the EC launched a safeguard investigation into imported steel products. The EC determined on July 18, 2018, to impose a temporary precautionary measure on the import of a number of steel products classified under 23 product categories for a period of 200 days.

On February 2, 2019, the EC administered formal safeguard measures to 26 of the 28 product categories under investigation.

When exporting to the EU, TRAV suggests that steel exporters evaluate their imports to verify that export shipments are within the remaining quota.

This is a billion-dollar export market for the steel industry in Vietnam. In the prime year of 2021, steel exports to the EU surpassed $61 billion for the first time.

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