EU Mulls Duties on Chinese Fasteners

Jason Sandefur

The European Commission has issued a detailed proposal to EU member countries that recommends an antidumping tariff of 87.3% on a majority of exporting Chinese fastener factories, across all the tariff codes cited in the antidumping complaint.
A tariff level of 78% is proposed for around 90 factories that cooperated with the European investigators. A small number of companies were accorded individual treatment and specific tariff proposals have been made for them, primarily in the range of 63.1% to 82.6%.
“Products likely to be affected by the antidumping measures, which are normally imposed for a five year period, range from socket screws, hex cap screws through self tapping and other small screws, wood and drywall screws, to flat and spring washers,” writes Fastener & Fixing Europe editor Phil Matten.
Nuts and threaded rod are not included in the probe.
Tariffs will not be applied immediately. The proposal must be considered by the EU Antidumping Committee, which is expected to meet either late November or early December. If approved, the tariffs could start in January.
“While it is not an absolute certainty that tariffs will be applied > it is, in practice, very rare that a majority of member states votes against the Commission’s recommendation in an antidumping case,” Matten notes.
The current EC proposal reportedly would exclude Chinese subsidiaries of European companies manufacturing products in China.
In March 2008 the British Association of Fastener Distributors warned that tariffs would force fastener price hikes in the UK. “We are not talking 4 or 5% here. We are facing the potential of increases probably upwards of 40%,” BAFD vice chairman Geoff Hopwood told F&FE.
The EC launched the investigation in November 2007 against a wide range of carbon steel fasteners imported from China. The investigation followed a complaint lodged by European fastener manufacturers, led by producers in Italy.
The complaint alleges dumping margins between 90% and 195% on commonly used fasteners, such as woodscrews, hexagonal head bolts, socket screws, self tapping screws and washers.

“Tariffs at anything like these levels would cause chaos in world fastener markets,” Hopwood said at the time. “We do not believe the capacity exists in Europe to respond to any switch in demand and, anyway, some of the European producers that lodged the complaint, are already understood to be planning price increases in anticipation of high tariffs.” �2008 FastenerNews.com