EUROFER calls for vigilance in global steel trade

Ahead of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) Steel Committee meeting being held in late March 2017, the European Steel Association (EUROFER) has warned that the explosive growth in steel exports from countries such as Iran, India, South Korea and Turkey risks undermining the progress made in deploying trade defense tools to stabilise the industry against massive dumping from China and its steelmaking sector.

“Imports now make up a share of 25% of the EU market, with imports having risen by 9% in the second half of 2016," says Axel Eggert, EUROFER director general. "This is a record high, despite the impact of trade defense measures in reducing the volume of Chinese imports into the EU. Chinese imports are being replaced by those from other countries.” 

As an example, Eggert notes that Iranian exported 117,000 tonnes of steel to the EU in 2012; last year Iran exported 1.1 million tonnes of steel to the EU. “This is a nearly tenfold increase,” he notes.

“As an open market, the EU has been targeted by foreign exporters of cheap, often unfairly dumped steel,” Eggert adds. “This is one of the reasons EUROFER looks to the [European] Commission to utilise the tools available to it to defend the steel industry from dumping from other countries. The point the commission must remember is: It’s not just China.”

He continues, “The global market is suffering from perhaps 700 million tonnes of global overcapacity. We can only expect the number of cases of dumping to increase as other countries attempt to offload their excess production."

Eggert concludes, “The European Commission, in undertaking its role as the operator of Europe’s trade defense tools, has managed to cool off the massive surge of Chinese exports to the EU that flooded the market in 2015-2016. However, it must also tackle the rise of dumped imports from other countries – which is a real and growing threat to the future of the European steel industry. Foreign trading partners cannot be permitted to seek profit by circumventing the rules of free and fair trade at Europe’s expense."