Turkey re-extends duration of provisional import duties on steel

Turkey has re-extended the duration of provisional import duties on 300 products, including some steel products, until Dec. 31, with a presidential decree published on Sept. 24 seen by S&P Global Platts.

Turkey began to impose additional import duties on some finished and semi-finished steel products for a three month-period on April 18 until July 15 to protect production and employment in the domestic steel industry during the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the April 18 decree, customs duties on some alloy and non alloy billet, slab, hot-rolled coil, cold-rolled coil, coated coil, stainless steel, sections and some bar products increased from the previous range of 9%-15% to 14%-20%.

The duration of the duties was then extended till Sept. 30 with another presidential decree on July 14, as Platts has reported. These duties will now remain in force until Dec. 31, 2020.

EU countries and countries with which Turkey has free trade agreements, however, are exempt from these provisional duties.

Turkey was expected to impose retaliatory duties against EU steel, based on the reciprocity principle, in response to the EU’s move for additional measures against EU imports of Turkish steel. Turkey informed the World Trade Organization in this regard on May 25. But, despite Turkish mills’ expectations in this regard, no decree about it has been published so far by the government.

World Trade Organization members have agreed to the establishment of a dispute panel to review a complaint filed by Turkey regarding the EU’s safeguard measures on imports of certain steel products at a meeting of the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) on Aug. 28, as Platts has reported.

Veysel Yayan, general secretary of Turkish Steel Producers’ Association (TCUD), told Platts that the final report of the panel is expected within six months.

— Cenk Can