- stainless steel
- solar panels
- aluminum foil
- bicycles
- screws
- paper
- kitchenware
- office-file fasteners
- plywood
- hand trucks
Steelmakers Brace for EU-China Trade Proposal: Brussels Beat
By: Jonathan Stearns | Nov 07 2016 at 03:56 AM | International Trade
For China, it’s a question of respect. For some European Union manufacturers, it’s a matter of survival. And for EU policymakers, it’s one of the hottest political potatoes around.
The European Commission in Brussels is set to propose legislation on Wednesday affecting billions of euros in Chinese exports to the EU. The goal is to meet demands by China for equal treatment in trade cases and to assure EU companies such as steelmaker ArcelorMittal and solar-panel producer Solarworld AG that import tariffs are high enough to protect them from Chinese competitors.
China is demanding that it be designated a market economy, which could lower EU tariffs on imports by changing the way the levies are calculated. Steel, solar-panel and other European manufacturers, struggling to compete against aggressive Chinese rivals, rely on tariffs designed to counter imports sold below cost, a practice known as dumping.
In some cases the trade protection appears to be working. ArcelorMittal, the top steel producer in Europe and the U.S., said earlier this year that prices recovered in those regions after trade measures were introduced, and the company reported its best quarterly profit since 2011.
ArcelorMittal traded at 6.07 euros per share at 9:45 a.m. in Amsterdam, up more than 100 percent from the start of the year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
While it’s the EU’s No. 2 trade partner after the U.S., China is grouped with the likes of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Mongolia in lacking market-economy designation by Europe and faces more European anti-dumping duties than any other country. Examples of the roughly 60 Chinese products on which the EU applies such levies are: