The Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (dtic) has published a notice in the Government Gazette to impose safeguard duties on imports of hot-rolled steel products.

This is after the International Trade Administration Commission of South Africa (Itac) made a final determination that such safeguard measures be put in place and that it be instructed to monitor the prices of the subject products.

The commission recommended that the dtic impose duties of 13% in the first year on certain hot-rolled steel product imports, 11% in the second year and 9% in the third year.

It also recommended that the measures be imposed against imports from all countries, excluding imports from developing countries where the imports from each of these countries do not exceed 3% of the total volume of imports or collectively for more than 9% of total imports.

Itac said safeguard measures had been introduced “to protect a domestic industry against, not necessarily unfair, but nevertheless overwhelming foreign competition”.

The measures have been introduced against an unforeseen surge in imports that threaten to or cause serious injury to a domestic industry.

However, safeguard measures are temporary measures with timelines to allow a domestic industry to adjust and improve its competitiveness, Itac added in a statement.

Industry association the South African Iron and Steel Institute (Saisi) brought an application on behalf of steel producer ArcelorMittal South Africa, which is the major producer of the subject product in the Southern African Customs Union (Sacu), for an investigation of remedial action in the form of a safeguard measure against the increased imports of hot-rolled steel products.

In its preliminary determination on July 5, 2024, Itac said the surge in volume of imports is recent enough, sudden enough, sharp enough and significant enough to warrant safeguard measures and that the Sacu industry is suffering serious injury.

“Although there are factors other than the imports that contributed to the injury, such as reduced demand in the steel market and lack of infrastructure investment, labour unrest, [higher] input costs, and energy supply and logistics constraints, these factors did not sufficiently detract from the causal link between the serious injury suffered by Saisi and the surge in volumes of imports resulting from the unforeseen developments,” it said in the preliminary determination.

Hot-rolled steel is used for the manufacturing of general engineering products such as containers, mining equipment, small and large bore pipes, earth moving equipment, gas cylinders, truck trailers and water tanks, among others.

This product was normally used by products merchants, service centres, and fabricators who converted material into pipes and tubes primarily for construction projects. Smaller tubing was used for school furniture, while hot-rolled slit material was used for lip channels, it noted.