The economic recession the United States is going through at the moment, the unprecedented decline in the steel price and pressures of the American producers made American officials come to Romania.
The purpose of the visit, started by US Trade Department (USTD) representatives on Monday, is to conduct some analyses to establish the final level of the anti-dumping charges to be operated for steel products exported from Romania to the United States.
USTD at the end of last week, during a preliminary analysis, substantially increased the average level of the anti-dumping charges levied on flat metallurgical products from Romania, a level initially set in April 2001.
The main reason for this increase lies in the complaints filed by American steel giants such as Bethlehem Steel, LTV Steel Company, National Steel Corporation and U.S. S
teel Group against countries in South America, Asia and Eastern Europe, Romania included. The Americans say the producers in the above-mentioned regions benefit from too large subsidies from the State and subsequently can afford to export below production costs.
The producers on the American market claim they incurred $600 million in losses last year, which led six of them to bankruptcy.
Most of the Romanian trade companies had to bear an increase in export charges to the USA. Therefore the exports of laminated products made by Sidex Trading and Sidex International were charged higher, that is 50.96% instead of the previous 22.97%.
The export charges for Metanef increased from 32.36% to 62.37%, from 33.40% to 50.23% for Metagrimex SA and from 25.60% to 54.22% for Metalexportimport. The overall charge for Romania was maintained at 88.62%.
The American experts will visit Sidex Trading and Sidex International, Metanef SA, Metagrimex Business Group and Metalexportimport trade companies, which together account for most of the Romanian steel product exports.
The trade companies will not supply steel products to the USA during the investigation, which may impact on the economic situation of the Romanian companies.
"I don't think it will be possible for us to resume exports to the American market by the end of this year," Mirela Apostol, head of the Export Department within Metagrimex Business Group SA, told Mediafax.
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