The EU yesterday imposed new import tariffs on Chinese-made tiles to protect EU producers from cutthroat price competition from Chinese exporters.
Chinese exporters of bathroom, kitchen and paving tiles now face anti-dumping duties ranging from 26.3 percent to 69.7 percent at European borders, in a move that the EU says will counteract the harmful impact of illegal Chinese dumping.
“The effects of the imposition of measures can be expected to assist the Union industry, with [a] reduction of the threat of closures and reductions in employment,” the EU said in its official register.
Duties will stay in place for five years, and producers may ask for an extension of the measures beyond 2016.
The 27-state bloc uses about 1 billion square meters of floor and wall tiles every year. About 7 percent of these are sourced from China.
Europe is the world’s second-biggest ceramic tiles producer after China and exports 25 percent of its production, with its market share rising abroad, according to industry figures.
However, producers — largely based in Italy, Spain and Germany and running small operations — say a price war with China has squeezed profit margins to 0.28 percent in 2009 from almost 7 percent in 2005.
“The introduction of duties serves to re-establish a fair level of competition so that EU ceramic tile producers can continue to compete in Europe, at least as much as they successfully do on export markets,” said Alfonso Panzani, president of the European Tile Manufacturers’ Association which complained last year, triggering an investigation.
However, it is uncertain that duties will boost profits for European producers, as importers may turn to Turkey or Indonesia for cheap tiles.
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