The definitive measures taken by the European Commission (EC) in its safeguard case against steel product imports will not result in changes to the imported volumes or domestic prices of hot-rolled coil, cold-rolled coil or plate, market sources told Fastmarkets this week.
The situation, however, is different in hot-dipped galvanized coil (HDG), for which import volumes might decline, giving support to domestic prices.The EC has imposed definitive safeguard measures on a list of imported steel products, in the form of tariff rates and a range of quotas that are partly annual and country-specific and partly quarterly and global. These came into effect on February 2.The measures concern 26 steel product categories, with any imports that exceed their quota becoming subject to duty at 25%.The measures will be in place for a period of three years. This has been calculated to include the period of the earlier provisional measures, which means that the definitive measures will expire on June 30, 2021.The tariff-rate quotas will be applied over three time periods. The first will be from February 2, 2019, to June 30, 2019; the second will cover July 1, 2019, to June 30, 2020;...