EU imposes preliminary duties on Turkish HRC

The European Commission has introduced provisional anti-dumping duties on Turkish hot-rolled coil (HRC) imports, which will be collected starting tomorrow. A definitive decision is expected by 10 July.

The commission has maintained the duty rates as proposed — Habas will be subject to a 4.8pc duty, Erdemir to 5.4pc and Colakoglu to 7.6pc, and will apply to the cif value of the products. Agir Haddecelik and Borcelik both face 5.9pc duties, and all other exporting companies 7.6pc.

Imports have been subject to registration since 12 November, which will now be stopped in light of the preliminary duty. A decision on whether the commission will collect a retroactive duty for the period between 12 November and the imposition of the provisional duty will be made at the definitive stage of the probe.

The findings of the investigation note that all of Colakoglu's exports have been done through Turkish firm Cotas.

The investigation compared the fob and ex-works prices of the Turkish producers. One of the companies sampled — likely to be Colakoglu, as it faces the highest duty and has been identified as selling through a trading company — had omitted transportation costs for its domestic market sales, the commission said. As such, the commission was unable to verify the ex-works price for comparison purposes and applied Article 18 of the basic regulation on protection against dumped imports, which, on the basis of non co-operation, allows the commission to use its own calculations.

The Turkish government told industry participants on 29 December that it was going to start an anti-dumping investigation into imports of European HRC, and was expected to officially announce this by the end of the year. No such announcement has yet been made.

By Lora Stoyanova