On June 26, the EU issued commission implementing regulation (EU) 2023/1301 amending Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/159, which imposes a definitive safeguard measure on imports of steel products, according to the Vietnam Trade Office in Belgium.

This decision was made to address the concern that the increasing influx of imported steel products into the EU market may hurt the domestic steel industry if the safeguard measures were not extended.

Under the extended safeguard measure, the European Commission has adopted a combination of separate quotas allocated for each country and a general quota for the remaining countries. Imports that exceed the quota are subject to an additional 25% duty.

Any developing country member of the WTO was excluded from the application of the definitive measure for as long as its share of imports into the EU remains below 3% of the total imports for each product category.

These regulations will benefit 12 countries and territories, including Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Moldova, North Macedonia, Oman, South Africa, Turkey, and Vietnam.

Vietnamese enterprises exporting steel products to the EU market will be subject to a common quota within eight specific product groups. These groups include group 1 (hot rolled steel plate); group 3B (electrical engineering steel plate); group 4A, 4B (galvanized steel plate), group 5 (organic coated steel plate), group 9 (stainless cold rolled steel plate), group 25B (large steel pipes); group 26 (other steel pipes).

Vietnam is exempted from safeguard measures for other groups of steel products, as its import turnover falls below 3%, which is considered negligible according to the criteria set for developing countries.

Source: Saigon Times