The European Union Officially Amended Antidumping Tariffs

The European Union officially amended antidumping tariffs on certain steel fasteners imported from China. As expected, and reported by Fastener + Fixing Magazine in September, the new regulation confirms the continuation of antidumping measures against Chinese steel fasteners, but has reduced the tariff levels slightly. "The regulation confirms that the EU was correct in its original determination that dumping had occurred and that this had resulted in material injury to the EU fastener manufacturing industry, " writes Fastener + Fixing Executive Editor Phil Matten. Regulation 924/2012 recalculates the tariff levels applied to imports of the cited products reducing the headline tariff level from 85% to 74.1%. Tariffs applied to around 90 exporters that cooperated with the original investigation will reduce from 77.5% to 54.1%. Tariffs for eight companies that received individual treatment during the original investigation are amended. There is one addition to the original schedule of tariffs, with Bulten Fasteners (China) Ltd, being accorded a zero level tariff. The new regulation was officially enacted on October 11, and appears unlikely to make any significant changes to the pattern of fastener imports to the EU, according to Fastener + Fixing. The application of the tariffs in early 2009 resulted in importers shifting their orders to Taiwan and other Asian countries. "While the proposed lower tariffs on Chinese imports will close the duty paid price gap indications from importers are that there is little real incentive for importers to revert to ordering from China, " Matten writes. Source:chinafastener