China — State Council Tariff Commission 2023 Tariff Adjustment Plan (Tax Committee Announcement No. 11 of 2022): aluminum/aluminum-alloy export tariff increase

Mechanism

This is China's routine annual tariff-schedule instrument, issued each December by the State Council Tariff Commission and implemented by Customs/MOF from 1 January of the following year. The 2023 edition (Tax Committee Announcement No. 11 of 2022) bundles a liberalising import-side change with a restrictive export-side change into one state act:

Export tariff increase on aluminum/aluminum alloy. The Ministry of Finance's own interpretive note states the plan raises export tariffs on aluminum and aluminum alloy ("提高铝和铝合金出口关税") to promote "transformation, upgrading and high-quality development" of the related industry — the standard framing China uses when discouraging export of a semi-processed material to protect downstream domestic capacity. Per trade-press reporting that transcribes the schedule's export-tariff table (HS 76012000 unforged aluminum alloy family), the provisional export tariff on refined aluminum alloy meeting specific low alkali-metal/hydrogen-content thresholds was raised from 0% in 2022 to 15% in 2023, while the standard unforged-aluminum-alloy rate held at the existing 15%. Three additional aluminum tariff codes (HS 76041010, 76042100, 76042910) were newly added to the export schedule at a 0% provisional rate.

Import-side changes (not the restrictive component GTA flags). The same announcement cancels provisional import rates on a set of goods (chestnuts, licorice products, large tires, sugar-cane harvesters), reverting them to MFN rates, and separately schedules an eighth-step MFN cut on 62 information-technology products from 1 July 2023 — bringing China's overall average tariff level from 7.4% to 7.3%. These are the "liberalising" intervention GTA logs within the same state act.

Severity basis

Severity is kept low (2) because the restrictive export-tariff change is narrow in scope — a handful of aluminum-alloy tariff lines within a much larger, largely-liberalising annual schedule update — not a broad export ban or licensing regime. The 15-percentage-point increase on the qualifying refined-alloy line is a real, quantified rate change (anchoring severity_basis: quant), but it sits alongside three newly created aluminum export codes left at 0%, indicating a targeted adjustment rather than a blanket restriction.

Downstream implications

• Refined aluminum-alloy exporters shipping product meeting the

low alkali-metal/hydrogen-content specification lose the 0% provisional export rate and face the standard 15% rate from 1 January 2023 — a margin hit on a narrow, higher-purity product line rather than the bulk unwrought-aluminum trade.

• Routine instrument, not an escalation. Unlike MOFCOM's targeted

export-control actions on gallium, germanium, graphite or antimony (tracked separately in this register), this is administrative annual tariff-schedule maintenance that happens to include one restrictive aluminum line.

Open questions

• The exact scope (tonnage, current trade value) of exports affected

by the alloy specification that lost its 0% provisional rate — the annexed tariff tables were not independently retrievable during filing.

• Whether this export-tariff pattern on refined aluminum alloy recurs

or tightens in subsequent annual tariff-adjustment plans.