Displaying items by tag: Ministry of Commerce

China/US: China’s Ministry of Commerce has proposed placing retaliatory tariffs on products from the US, including cement. The list covers 5207 items and proposes adding import taxes of up to 25% on them. It includes clinker, white cement, limestone, quicklime, slaked lime, gypsum, refractory products and cement packaging machinery. The ministry said that the new tariffs will take effect at a date to be announced later on.

China: The Anti-monopoly Bureau of the Ministry of Commerce has approved the merger between China National Building Material (CNBM) and China National Materials (Sinoma). Shareholders approved the merger between the leading Chinese producer and the equipment manufacturer in early December 2017 following approval by the Fair Trade Commission in South Korea in November 2017.

Saudi Arabia: Saudi Arabia has lifted a ban on exporting cement, the chief executive of Yanbu Cement has said to local press. Ahmed bin Abduh Zugail, who is also the deputy head of the Saudi national committee of cement companies, added that cement companies have welcomed the relaxation of the ban. However, full details of the new regulations are yet to be released by the Ministry of Commerce.

Local press reported in late November 2015 that government bodies were considering cutting the ban on cement exports. The ban was originally introduced in Saudi Arabia to keep prices down and production flowing for large infrastructure projects built using oil revenue.

Pakistan: The Ministry of Commerce has initiated World Trade Organisation (WTO) dispute settlement proceedings to fight South African anti-dumping duties on cement from Pakistan. The basis of Pakistan's argument is that the injury determination mechanism followed by South African authorities (ITAC) is flawed and does not reflect true analysis of the situation.

The Pakistan challenge has raised the issue that the South African authorities used an extended period of investigation of four years for causation analysis and didn't properly examine the evidence in the light of trends over that period. In addition, Pakistan considers that South Africa failed to examine the relationship between the alleged dumping and the worsening of the condition of the domestic industry especially by failing to consider the effects of the decartelization of the domestic cement producers. It also accuses South Africa of not properly examining the entire product under investigation and instead limiting its injury analysis to bagged cement and disregarded sales by the domestic industry of the bulk cement. Finally, the challenge has pointed out that the South African authorities didn't provide a fair opportunity to Pakistani cement exporters to defend their case, denying access to the trade statistics.

In May 2015 South Africa imposed various rates of duties on Pakistani cement exports ranging from 15 – 68% plus anti-dumping duty on the import of Pakistani cement. Since March 2015 Pakistan has been pursuing the matter on a legal and diplomatic basis.