Egypt has increased its import duties on a wide variety of steel products by 10pc with effect from June 24.
The protections were enacted to increase revenue and provide the local industries with additional insulation from imports, especially, in light of a weak domestic steel market due to COVID-19. The duty will be imposed on imported finished steel including flats, wire rod, and rebar.
Semi-finished steel such as billet is not subject to the additional tariff and will continue at the 16pc safeguard. Longs products presently have an existing 25pc safeguard which provides sufficient protection from imports. The additional 10pc is not expected to affect already low imports for longs.
Imports of flats products is expected to decline once there’s more clarity on which products would come under these new tariffs and which would be exempted.
The possibility exists that flats imported for processing and fabrication by buyers who posses industrial licenses may be exempt from the additional 10pc import duty. If the exemption remains after clarification, the net effect on imports is negligible. However, if the import duty applies to all flat steel imported without exemption then flat steel imports are expected to decline in favor of domestic producers.