The European Commission has renewed a five-year tariff on tungsten electrodes for Chinese-made welding products, with a maximum tax rate of 63.5%, reported by the foreign news on July 29, 2019. The data source from the EU’s “Official Journal of the European Union”. The EU’s tariffs on Chinese-made welding products were renewed. The EU renewed tariffs on tungsten electrodes for Chinese-made welding products for the second time. The European Union believes that EU producers Plansee SE and Gesellschaft fuer Wolfram Industrie mbH are “unstable” and require longer protection.

The European Commission has again imposed a five-year tariff on Chinese tungsten electrodes to punish exporters who allegedly dumped related products at a lower cost than Europe, with a tariff rate of up to 63.5%, depending on the situation of each Chinese company.

In this case, the European Union imposed a final anti-dumping duty on China’s tungsten electrode products in 2007. The tax rate of the surveyed manufacturers ranged from 17.0% to 41.0%. The remaining export manufacturers had a tax rate of 63.5%. After the review at the end of 2013, the above measures were announced. On May 31, 2018, the EU re-announced the final review of the anti-dumping measures in this case and announced the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/1267 on July 26, 2019, and finally imposed anti-dumping measures on the product description and product tariff number. The columns include CN codes ex 8101 99 10 and ex 85 15 90 80.

The EU determines the distortion of the Chinese product market according to the provisions of Article 2 (6a) of the basic regulations, and refers to the price of the main raw materials of Ammonium paratungstate (APT) announced by the National Mineral Information Center of the United States, and the production cost elements such as labor and electricity in Turkey.

Tungsten electrodes are mainly used in welding operations in the aerospace, automotive, shipbuilding, oil and gas industries. According to the European Commission, the total share of Chinese exporters in the EU market has been at 40% to 50% since 2015, up from 30% to 40% in 2014, while the EU-made products are all from EU producers Plansee SE and Gesellschaft fuer Wolfram Industrie mbH. The European Commission’s five-year tariff on the tungsten electrodes for Chinese-made welding products is to protect domestic manufacturers, it may also have an impact on Chinese exports.