Jan 05, 2024
EU HRC importers to pay first-quarter safeguard taxes

Importers of hot rolled coil into Europe are set to be requested to pay part of the 25% safeguard duties, as volumes currently being cleared at customs have exceeded the allocated first-quarter quota.

Similarly to what happened in Q4 2023, there are almost 1.1 million tonnes of HRC waiting to be cleared under the “other countries” sub-group. This figure exceeds the tariff-free available quota by some 170,000t, meaning that importers could be requested to pay an almost 5% duty on these imports, according to Kallanish calculations.

The “other countries” quotas include all import origins, excluding Serbia, Turkey, India, South Korea and the UK.

Importers of metallic coated coil from China are also set to face a similar problem. For Q1, the allocated quota amounts to slightly over 126,000t but, at the moment, over 190,000t of this product is awaiting to be cleared by EU Customs.

Emanuele Norsa Italy

Source: Eurometal