Eurofer, which represents Europe's iron and steelmaking industry, is threatening to launch an anti-dumping suit against China unless the country curbs its rising exports volumes.
The Brussels-based organisation is alarmed that China's steelmaking capacity is increasing even faster than the country's appetite for steel and Europe risks being swamped. Gordon Moffat, director general of the European Confederation of Iron & Steel Industries, said: "We saw an enormous surge of Chinese steel into the European market last year."
Mr Moffat said that in the first nine months of 2006, steel imports from China totalled 3.8m tonnes - up from 1.2m tonnes in the same period of 2005. In some sectors of the industry some 40% of European imports were from China, much of it at low prices. "It is beginning to impact the market. We simply cannot bear that type of increase."
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Seeing all the reports over the last few years about the growth in Chinese steel capacity, meant it was inevitable that at some stage we would arrive to this position.
What I find surprising is that there has been little made of the massive increase in the exports of final manufactured goods from China, that has lead to major reductions in manufacturing in the UK. I am aware of instances of finished metal goods arriving in the UK which are "weight for weight" cheaper than the constituent metal cost over here.
If our manufacturers of metal goods are not offered the same proposed protection as the steelmakers, then the European steel industry will have no customers to sell to.
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