Official: Russia wants to turn to WTO over EU steel duties

MOSCOW, Aug 18 (PRIME) -- Russia wants to complain to the World Trade Organization (WTO) about E.U. import duties on cold-rolled steel, Maxim Medvedkov, director of the trade negotiations department of the Economic Development Ministry, told PRIME in an interview published on Thursday.

The E.U. introduced the anti-dumping duty on cold-rolled steel from Russia and China in February, and in August it revised the rates and extended the duties for five years. The final duty for Severstal stands at 34.1%, for Novolipetsk Steel (NLMK) and for other metals producers at 36.1%, and for Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works (MMK) at 18.7%.

“WTO members have the right to apply anti-dumping measures in accordance with procedures. Brussels evidently abuses this right. This is why in this case we may have to go to court,” Medvedkov said.

Medvedkov said that Russia sees an increasing number of E.U. violations committed while doing protective investigations of the Russian metals products, especially in the case of cold-rolled steel. “We think it was done with violations of the WTO norms, of which we have repeatedly said during contacts both on the political and expert levels.”

The official did not rule out a claim to the WTO if the U.S. introduces final duties on Russian cold-rolled steel.

“Since the formal investigation has not been completed, we have not considered using the procedure of WTO disputes in detail but we do not rule out this possibility if the final decision is made with infractions of WTO rules,” Medvedkov said.

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