EU registers aluminum extrusion imports from China

The European Commission will immediately register imports of aluminum extrusion profiles from China with the national customs authorities.

As of August 25, 2020, aluminum extrusions imported into the EU from China will be registered in the context of the ongoing anti-dumping investigations on extruded products. The European Commission has instructed the national customs authorities to take appropriate steps to register the imports. This should allow anti-dumping measures to be applied against these imports from the date of registration.

In a statement, the European aluminium association "European Aluminium" welcomes the action of the EU Commission and urges the Commission to introduce effective anti-dumping duties as soon as possible: “We applaud the Commission for taking this necessary and bold measure. This clearly underlines the Commission’s commitment to protecting the European aluminium industry from the damaging effects of unfair trade. We hope the registration measure will very soon be followed by effective anti-dumping measures that can more structurally address these issues,” commented Gerd Götz, European Aluminium’s Director General.

On 14 February, the European Commission announced the opening of an anti-dumping investigation into aluminium extrusions originating from China. The investigation follows a complaint by “European Aluminium” whose member companies are negatively impacted by the dumping of Chinese aluminium extrusions. Chinese imports of extrusions have reached a significant market share and Chinese imports of semi-fabricated aluminium products have more than doubled in the past five years.

With today’s announcement, the European Commission has directed the customs authorities to take the appropriate steps to register imports, so that anti-dumping measures may subsequently (and retroactively) be applied against those imports from the date of registration.

In addition to the ongoing extrusions anti-dumping investigation, the European Commission announced the opening of an anti-dumping investigation into certain aluminium flat rolled products originating from China on 14 August. The European Union is one of the few major markets still largely unprotected against dumped aluminium products from China.