Rising Barriers for Korean Exports
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced on Aug. 29 that 29 countries are currently implementing 200 import regulations on South Korean products in the form of anti-dumping duties and safeguard measures.
The ministry also said that investigations have been terminated without follow-up measures and South Korean steel products have been exempted when it comes to some steel safeguards. “The Canadian government excluded South Korean steel products from its final safeguard measures, the Turkish government finished its investigations without any measure, and the Eurasian Economic Union excluded cold-rolled and plated steel sheets from its steel safeguards,” the ministry explained.
As for countervailing duties applied to some South Korean steelmakers, the U.S. government recently lowered its tariff rates from 57.04 percent to 0.55 percent for hot-rolled products and from 59.7 percent to 0.55 percent for cold-rolled products in its final annual review determination.
When it comes to anti-dumping duties, imposition on hot-rolled stainless steel products has been postponed based on a price agreement with the Chinese government and no follow-up measure was taken in the United States’ recent stapler staple investigations.
There have been some improvements as to non-trade barriers, too. In the past, South Korean companies had to receive individual import permits from the Ministry of Commerce of Myanmar to import automobile assembly components from Myanmar, which took 19 days on average. The South Korean government asked the ministry to simplify the procedure and the ministry adopted a six-month import permit.