The EU ordered its customs officials to register flat-rolled stainless steel imports from China, Taiwan and Indonesia, widening the threat of tariffs on the shipments.
The step is part of an inquiry into whether Chinese, Taiwanese and Indonesian producers of hot-rolled, stainless-steel sheets and coils sold them in the EU below cost, a practice known as dumping. The move also covers a parallel EU probe of alleged trade-distorting subsidies to the manufacturers in China and Indonesia.
Registration allows the EU to impose possible tariffs on past transactions. Levies against below-cost imports are known as anti-dumping duties, while import taxes in response to subsidies are called countervailing duties.
The shipments from China, Taiwan and Indonesia will “be made subject to registration for the purpose of ensuring that, should the investigation result in findings leading to the imposition of anti-dumping and/or countervailing duties, those duties can, if the necessary conditions are fulfilled, be levied retroactively on the registered imports,” the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm in Brussels, said on Friday in the Official Journal.
Registration is to start today.
Hot-rolled, stainless-steel sheets and coils are used for other kinds of steel and for tubes. EU imports of the product from around the world were worth almost 900 million euros (US$994 million) in 2018, according to European industry group Eurofer, which filed complaints last year that led to the commission’s dumping and subsidy investigations against China, Taiwan and Indonesia.
The commission must decide by April 12 whether to introduce provisional anti-dumping duties on imports of this steel from the three countries and by Oct. 12 whether to impose “definitive” five-year levies. In the subsidy case against China and Indonesia, the commission must decide by July 10 on any provisional duties and by mid-November on any definitive levies.
On Ireland’s blustery western seaboard, researchers are gleefully flying giant kites — not for fun, but in the hope of generating renewable electricity and sparking a “revolution” in wind energy. “We use a kite to capture the wind and a generator at the bottom of it that captures the power,” said Padraic Doherty of Kitepower, the Dutch firm behind the venture. At its test site in operation since September 2023 near the small town of Bangor Erris, the team transports the vast 60-square-meter kite from a hangar across the lunar-like bogland to a generator. The kite is then attached by a
Foxconn Technology Co (鴻準精密), a metal casing supplier owned by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), yesterday announced plans to invest US$1 billion in the US over the next decade as part of its business transformation strategy. The Apple Inc supplier said in a statement that its board approved the investment on Thursday, as part of a transformation strategy focused on precision mold development, smart manufacturing, robotics and advanced automation. The strategy would have a strong emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI), the company added. The company said it aims to build a flexible, intelligent production ecosystem to boost competitiveness and sustainability. Foxconn
Leading Taiwanese bicycle brands Giant Manufacturing Co (巨大機械) and Merida Industry Co (美利達工業) on Sunday said that they have adopted measures to mitigate the impact of the tariff policies of US President Donald Trump’s administration. The US announced at the beginning of this month that it would impose a 20 percent tariff on imported goods made in Taiwan, effective on Thursday last week. The tariff would be added to other pre-existing most-favored-nation duties and industry-specific trade remedy levy, which would bring the overall tariff on Taiwan-made bicycles to between 25.5 percent and 31 percent. However, Giant did not seem too perturbed by the
TARIFF CONCERNS: Semiconductor suppliers are tempering expectations for the traditionally strong third quarter, citing US tariff uncertainty and a stronger NT dollar Several Taiwanese semiconductor suppliers are taking a cautious view of the third quarter — typically a peak season for the industry — citing uncertainty over US tariffs and the stronger New Taiwan dollar. Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科技) said that customers accelerated orders in the first half of the year to avoid potential tariffs threatened by US President Donald Trump’s administration. As a result, it anticipates weaker-than-usual peak-season demand in the third quarter. The US tariff plan, announced on April 2, initially proposed a 32 percent duty on Taiwanese goods. Its implementation was postponed by 90 days to July 9, then
RSS