Philippines, Thailand exempt RI steel poducts from safeguard duty

By Romel S. Gurky

The Philippines and Thailand governments have decided to stop their safeguard investigation into certain steel products from Indonesia, thus exempting the products from the punitive safeguard duty.

The Indonesian Ministry of Trade said in a statement Thursday that the Philippine government has on February 2 of this year stopped its investigation into galvanized iron (GI ) and prepainted galvanized iron (PPGI) products from Indonesia.

The investigation which started October 2013 has proved that Indonesian products have not caused injury to the Philippine steel industry as their market share remains below three percent. Therefore, the products are exempted from safeguard dutry when entering the Philippine market.

The ministry said that the Thailand government has also made similar decision on non-alloy hot rolled steel flat products in coils and not in coils from Indonesia based on the same argument, thus resulting from the products to be exempted from safeguard duty.

Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak