The government will continue to negotiate the exemption of Taiwanese steel exports from the EU’s 25 percent tariffs, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
The provisional safeguard measures concerning 23 categories of steel products came into effect yesterday, using the tariff-rate quota system, the European Commission said in a press release on Wednesday.
It would take the comments from all interested parties into consideration in order to reach its final conclusion, at the latest by early next year, the commission said.
The government would urge the EU to end its investigation into steel tariffs and ask for a quota for Taiwanese steel suppliers, the Bureau of Foreign Trade said in a statement, adding that the bureau would join a public hearing on the subject in September.
Citing trade data, the bureau said Taiwanese shipments of the 23 steel products to the EU last year totaled US$1.3 billion, ranking seventh in the European market.
That represented 8.83 percent of Taiwan’s total steel exports last year, data showed.
“The situation is not that tough [for Taiwanese steelmakers], compared with the US’ protectionist measures,” Taiwan Steel and Iron Industries Association (台灣鋼鐵工業同業公會) chairman Lin Horng-nan (林弘男) said by telephone, referring to US President Donald Trump’s order under Section 232 of the US Trade Expansion Act of 1962 to impose a 25 percent tariff on imported steel and a 10 percent tariff on aluminum.
Lin, who also serves as president of government-backed China Steel Corp (中鋼), said the EU’s 25 percent duties would only be imposed once imports exceed the average imports over the past three years and would be allocated on a first-come, first-serve basis.
“In addition, the temporary tariffs posed by the EU would only remain in place for up to 200 days,” he said.
In related news, Minister of Economic Affairs Shen Jong-chin (沈榮津) yesterday said that the EU’s tariffs on Chinese electric bicycles would have limited effect on Giant Manufacturing Co Ltd (巨大機械), Taiwan’s largest bicycle supplier, which has factories in China and the Netherlands.
The EU yesterday imposed tariffs of between 21.8 and 83.6 percent on all e-bikes from China, and Giant was subject to a rate of 27.5 percent, Reuters reported.
“As far as we know, the company is capable of relocating its manufacturing bases from China to the Netherlands or Taiwan [to avoid the tariffs],” Shen said.
Following a flexible business strategy, Giant earlier this month said it plans to spend 15 million euros (US$17.4 million) to build a plant in northern Hungary, which would be its second manufacturing base in Europe.
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