Where does steel sit with China and dumping decisions?

The Australian steel industry has two domestic manufacturers, BlueScope and Sanjeev Gupta’a Infrabuild. Picture: AFP

Australia has three dumping decisions against Chinese steel imports, but the biggest issue is not so much the duties, but how they were imposed.

China is threatening to retaliate against Australia in a range of products with most figuring Australian calls for an investigation into the source of COVID-19 are the source of China’s angst.

Put that out to one side and China has an arguable case against Australia on dumping rules, because on steel, Australia applies its own definition of market price, arguing there is no transparency in the Chinese market so it’s impossible to come up with an independent fair value.

Dumping duties are imposed when a product lands in Australia at below the normal price in the country of origin and causes injury to the local industry.

In most cases, it’s the second leg which causes the problem because with injury, it is difficult to pinpoint exactly why the harm is caused.

There could be myriad reasons why a local manufacturer is in trouble, such as high gas prices or poor management, so blaming imports is often a convenient excuse.

In China, this is compounded by the fact the Anti Dumping Authority doesn’t take any notice of the Chinese domestic price and instead imposes its own price based on a list of peer country prices.

The Australian steel industry has two domestic manufacturers, BlueScope and Sanjeev Gupta’a Infrabuild and both are frequent complainants before the Dumping Authority.

There are three present imports hit by duties including pipe and tube lodged by BlueScope and Infrabuild, galvanised coil from BlueScope, and zincalume from BlueScope.

China is a frequent entry in steel dumping cases, but the list also includes Thailand, Korea, Taiwan and India.

Infrabuild has tried to tie Turkey into the net, but its attempts to complain on Turkish reinforcing bar were thrown out by the Dumping Authority.

Infrabuild owns a steel company in China called Dalian Steel Force which exports to Australia, but is mysteriously absent when complaints are lodged.