Industry Ministry cancels tariff on Chinese, Belgian steel

CAIRO – 24 August 2017: Minister of Industry and Foreign Trade Tarek Kabil issued a decision on Thursday to abstain from imposing a dumping tariff on steel imports from China and Belgium.

The decision came following the recommendations of the Ministry’s consulting committee assigned to study anti-dumping methods, Kabil said in a statement.
Kabil added that the decision is applied on galvanized and roll steel.

To protect local manufacturers from suffering losses, Kabil imposed in June a temporary anti-dumping tariff at 17 percent for Chinese steel, 10-19 percent for Turkish steel, and 15-27 percent for Ukrainian steel.
Rebar and wire rod imports from China, Turkey and Ukraine have always posed a challenge to Egyptian steel producers, who are currently facing hurdles in making profits due to the floatation of the Egyptian pound in November, which caused higher production costs.

In December 2016, an investigation was opened to look into the dumping of steel from China, Turkey, and Ukraine into the market, and was officially published in the Official Gazette.

The investigation was strongly rejected by the Chamber of Building Materials at the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce, which represents the steel importers and claimed that imposing anti-dumping fees would eventually harm the end consumer.
Importers were dealing with low-quality steel from China, Turkey and Ukraine, which are highly subsidized in their countries of origin.

Domestic steel manufacturers submitted complaints to the Authority of Anti-Subsidies, Dumping and Prevention in October 2016, stating that imported steel from the aforementioned countries are selling at dumping prices.