Displaying items by tag: World Trade Organisation
UK: The Mineral Products Association (MPA) has outlined key points that the UK government should consider ahead of its anticipated triggering of Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon later in March 2017 as it moves towards leaving the European Union (EU). Following consultation with its members the association wants the government to focus on six areas including: investment; growth; access to markets; access to labour and skills; maintaining equivalent regulations and standards; and rebalancing regulation after Brexit.
"More needs to be done, both politically and economically, to give the clarity needed by businesses to sustain investment confidence beyond the triggering of Article 50. The economy has remained resilient in the short term, but the issue always was, and remains, what will happen post-Brexit in the medium and longer term? Given that the public political conversation in the UK has not yet involved the other 27 EU member states, we are currently no wiser as to the likely outcome of negotiations. We must therefore contemplate the possibility that no deal may mean a clean break in 2019 and trading arrangements under WTO rules,” said MPA chief executive officer Nigel Jackson.
The MPA has urged the government to build confidence in the short and long term performance of the UK economy and maintain stability. It also wants it to seek the fullest access to European and non-European markets using comprehensive free trade agreements in preference to adopting World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.
The association also highlighted that, on average, 3% of the Mineral Products industry's workforce comes from the EU, increasing to 9% for activities directly related to freight transport by road. It noted that at present there is no guarantee that EU citizens now resident in the UK will have a continuing right to reside in and work in the UK following Brexit.
Other issues include a desire for the government to confirm its commitment to existing regulatory initiatives and to hold and improve on the international competitiveness of energy intensive industries such as cement and lime. However, it also asked the government to mind the impacts of regulation of taxation on these industries in order to protect investment. Lastly, the MPA wants the government to retain influence in European product technical standards development via the British Standards Institution (BSI), the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) and design codes.
Cembureau lobbies for revised European emissions trading scheme
07 February 2017Belgium: Cembureau, the European cement association, has lobbied members of the European Parliament with its opinion that the European Union (EU) Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) must maintain free allowances at the level of best-performers in order to achieve real emission reductions whilst maintaining a competitive industry in Europe. It expressed its views ahead of a scheduled vote in the plenary session of the Parliament in February 2017. One of its key demands was that fairness should be a key principle of policy making and that jobs in one sector are just as important as those in other sectors.
Cembureau called for the proposal to amend the EU ETS to ensure that all energy-intensive industries are on the carbon leakage list and all installations receive a free allocation based on ‘ambitious but realistic’ benchmarks, and benefit from free allocation based on actual production. It wants a sufficient number of free allocations for energy intensive industries at risk of carbon leakage to be made available, hence the auction share should not be higher than 52%. It also wants no further burden to be imposed on EU-ETS sectors. The 43% reduction objective and the 2.2% linear reduction factor for phase IV should not be further increased. Lastly, it has asked for support for innovation focus on energy intensive industries with an extension to cover the whole range of low carbon technologies including industrial carbon capture and utilisation (CCU). The Innovation Fund should be fully financed from the auctioning share.
In response to an amendment made by the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety committee (ENVI) the cement association said that it did not believe that this proposal could work. Its main concerns were: that introducing such a mechanism with a consequential loss of free allowances could create legal uncertainty and hamper further investments by the cement sector in Europe; that it would be impossible to measure the CO2 performance of third country producers; an overall lack of clarity as to how such scheme would operate; serious concerns about World Trade Organisation (WTO) compatibility; that application to a few sectors would only lead to discrimination in the downstream market where cement competes with other building materials (steel, glass, wood, asphalt) that are not subject to such a scheme; and that the suggested scheme would lead to a competitive disadvantage for European cement producers on export markets where local cement players are not subject to similar CO2 constraints.
Cembureau also used the opportunity to highlight some of the research projects the local sector is undertaking to improve its environmental performance, reduce CO2 emissions and improve energy efficiency.
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.
Pakistan: The Pakistan government is working on two options to challenge South African anti-dumping duties on Pakistani exports of cement. The first step will be to hold bilateral consultations with the South African government to resolve the anti-dumping duties favourably. Failing that, then the Pakistan government has the option to take the issue to the Geneva-based World Trade Organisation (WTO), according to an official from the Pakistan National Tariff Commission (NTC).
The International Trade Administration Commission of South Africa (ITAC) imposed provisional anti-dumping duties of 14.3 – 77.2% on Portland Cement originating in or imported from Pakistan from 15 May 2015 for six months. The duty was imposed on bagged cement.
According to local media, Lucky Cement, the major supplier to South Africa with a 55% market share, seems to have had sales volumes little affected by the anit-dumping measure due to its low duty. However, Attock Pakistan, the second largest supplier with a 35% market share, has been the worst hit due to its high anti-dumping duty. Pakistani cement exporters are exploring other markets in southern Africa.