The UK's secretary of state for international trade, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, has "called in" the Trade Remedies Authority's (TRA's) reconsideration of its steel safeguard review, meaning she assumes responsibility for the review and its outcome.
"The government has decided to call in the reconsideration due to the strategic importance of the steel sector in the UK," Trevelyan said.
She has asked the TRA to conduct an analysis of products at an aggregate level, which the government believes "may better reflect the nature of the steel industry, where developments affecting one product also have an impact on others". The aggregate analysis splits products into three categories — flats, longs and tubes. Stainless has not been given a separate category even though it has a totally different production process, and thus no relation, to carbon steel.
Gareth Stace, the director general of UK Steel, said the producers' association "warmly welcomes" the decision given the "continued distortions in the global steel market, and the need to take a wider view of circumstances than is afforded to the Trade Remedies Authority".
The idea of grouping products has been pushed by mills, which suggest developments in related products — hot-rolled and cold-rolled coil, for example — need to be heeded when deciding how to amend the safeguard.
The TRA originally decided to revoke safeguards on nine products out of 19 in June last year, a decision that was widely lambasted by local producers' and trade unions. The TRA recommended that safeguards on tin mill, metallic sheet, plate, rail, merchant bar and light sections, wire rod, wire, cold-finished bars, stainless bars and light sections and stainless wire rod should be scrapped. The secretary of state accepted those recommendations, but also extended protections for one year on five of the nine products to be revoked.
Then in September the TRA decided to review this decision, following feedback from five domestic mills and three importers and manufacturers. Now the decision on how to amend the safeguard lies with the UK government.
Trevelyan's review, which will be assisted by the TRA, is due by the end of June.
