LAHORE - The National Tariff Commission (NTC) has imposed anti-dumping duty on Chinese and South African origin colour coated steel coils and sheets imports on Wednesday.
NTC initiated an anti-dumping investigation last year in June at the behest of an application lodged by International Steels Limited (ISL). The Commission established that the domestic industry producing colour coated steel coils/sheets suffered material injury due to the increase in volume of dumped imports and price undercutting of the domestic like product in the local market leading to low levels of production, capacity utilisation, declining market share, and damaging effects on inventories and growth for domestic manufacturers of the product.
The Commission has thus decided to impose definitive anti-dumping duties effective from June 13, 2018 at the rates mentioned on C&F value on imports of CCC originating from China & South Africa (5.36 percent-14.24 percent) for a period of five years effective up till June, 2023. However, the anti-dumping duty will not be levied on producers who import said goods as inputs in products destined solely for exports.
The imposition of the AD-duty is a material positive for ISL (the sole listed CCC producer), which has been facing stiff competition from imported CCC products in both, domestic CCC and GC markets. This is as importers would routinely import CCC and dispatch it to domestic galvanised markets to avoid ADD previously imposed on imported galvanized steel products (as some consumers are able to substitute GC by CCC for their projects).
ISL has color coated coils production capacity of 84,000 tpa. The imposition of this protectionist policy should facilitate the flat steel roller to better compete in terms of pricing and ultimately improve margins.