The Indonesian Iron and Steel Association (IISIA) has proposed an anti-dumping duty on hot rolled coil (HRC) alloys from China.
IISIA wants to prevent carbon steel imports being converted into alloys by changing the HS codes, to avoid current duties.
Imports of steel alloy products, such as boron steel is similar to domestic steel manufactured in Indonesia, has impacted national steel producers, IISIA says.
In the last five years, the import of steel alloys has grown from 1.4mn mt in 2015, to 3.2mn mt in 2019.
Karkatau Steel has submitted its anti-dumping proposal on HRC alloys from China to the anti-dumping committee (Kadi), based on information pre-notified to China.
Located in Cilegon, Karkatau is Indonesia’s largest HRC and cold rolled coils (CRC) producer, and the second largest producer of steel wire rods (WR) in Indonesia.
As per the Central Statistics Agency, in 2019, the number of imported HRC steel alloys or alloy HRC sheets reached 675,000mt.
Karkatau claims that 65pc of HRC needed in the country can be produced by national steel producers.
Silmy Karim, IISA chairperson, said that the most favoured nation (MFN) status for China, resulted in FTAs (free trade agreement) where import duty for steel products was often reduced to zero.
Silmy used the example of the US, who imposed import tariffs on steel products at 25pc and aluminium at 10pc, as trade remedies to safeguard its domestic markets.
Meanwhile, the European Union (EU) and Turkey have taken steps to secure their domestic markets against steel imports as well, Silmy said.