Indonesia imposes safeguarding duties on Galvalume imports

The Indonesian government is imposing safeguard measures on imports of Galvalume for a period of three years, according to the country’s finance ministry.

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Safeguard import duties have been set at 4,998,784 rupiah ($433) per tonne in the first year, 4,314,161 rupiah ($374) per tonne in the second year, and 3,629,538 rupiah ($315) per tonne in the third year, a document recently posted on the ministry’s website read.

The regulation, which came into force on July 15, followed an investigation made by the Indonesian Safeguards Committee (KPPI) at the request of two local Galvalume producers, Sunrise Steel and NS BlueScope Indonesia.

NS BlueScope Indonesia is part of NS BlueScope Coated Products, a 50:50 joint venture between Australia’s BlueScope Steel and Japan’s Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp (NSSMC). 

At the end of May, a World Trade Organization (WTO) document showed Vietnam, Taiwan and South Korea to be the largest Galvalume exporters to Indonesia, representing 60.04%, 21% and 15.22% respectively of the country’s total imports in 2012.

According to the finance ministry’s decision, the measures will be set in accordance with the WTO rules, meaning the import duties will be imposed on the imports of all the WTO member countries except for developing countries that individually do not account for more than 3% of the total imports of the product.

A list of 120 countries are excluded from the measures, including China, India, Russia, Brazil, Malaysia and Thailand.

Classified under tariff code 7210.61.11.00, the products subject to the safeguarding duties must be wider than 600mm, have a thickness below 0.7mm and contain less than 0.6% carbon.