Loading…
Loading…
Last amendment: Final determination extends provisional 200-day safeguard to a definitive three-year period on hot-rolled flat steel and billets, following the WTO Article XIX post-provisional final-determination cycle. on 2026-04-02.
The safeguard is instituted under Egypt's Anti-Dumping, Anti-Subsidy and Safeguard Law No. 161 of 1998 (as amended) and its Executive Regulations, with the Trade Remedies Sector of the Ministry of Investment and Foreign Trade acting as the investigating authority. The investigation was initiated in April 2025 following a petition by the five-member domestic-producer consortium, which alleged a sharp import surge in 2025-H1 — USD 260 million in steel imports driven by lower international prices undercutting local break-even — causing serious injury findings across the five Egyptian flat-steel producers: production-capacity utilisation deterioration, market-share loss, price suppression, and operating-margin compression.
Unlike the country-specific anti-dumping measures adopted by India, Korea, and Türkiye targeting Chinese HRC exporters, Egypt's safeguard applies on an MFN (most-favoured-nation) all-source basis consistent with WTO Safeguards Agreement Article 2 — meaning all WTO Members' exports are subject to the duty, except those qualifying for the Article 9.1 developing-country de minimis carve-out. This MFN architecture makes the Decision the closest operational counterpart to the EU 2025/2026 steel safeguard regime among non-EU jurisdictions.
The EGP 3,673/ton minimum specific-duty floor operates independently of the CIF-value percentage rate and is designed specifically to preclude invoice-undervaluation circumvention — a common enforcement gap in ad-valorem-only safeguards where exporters deflate declared CIF values to reduce effective duty liability.
Two companion Decisions (Nos. 398 and 399 of 2025, issued on the same date) impose parallel temporary safeguards on cold-rolled and galvanised flat steel and on semi-finished iron and steel billets respectively. Together the trilogy covers the key flat-steel product categories from upstream billets through finished HRC to downstream cold-rolled/galvanised products, creating an integrated downstream-protection envelope. Downstream-user opposition from pipe manufacturers, structural steel fabricators, automotive-stamping producers, and appliance manufacturers was noted in the consultation phase but overridden in the Ministerial Decision.
The April 2026 final determination (issued after the 200-day provisional period ending ~1 April 2026) extended the provisional measure to a definitive three-year safeguard, confirming the Trade Remedies Sector's affirmative serious-injury causation finding in the full investigation.
more stringent instrument than a pure ad-valorem safeguard — exporters cannot use invoice undervaluation to arbitrage below the floor rate.
the largest African flat-steel import market; the measure is particularly material for ArcelorMittal, Erdemir (Ereğli), Tata Steel, Jindal Steel, Baoshan Iron & Steel (Baosteel), NLMK, and Severstal export routes to MENA.
upstream cost-pass-through risk from the combined safeguard trilogy covering HRC, CRC, and billets.
through at least 2029, with the possibility of a WTO Article XIX Article 7 extension review.
(2025-12-30-india-steel-flat-products-safeguard-duty-final) and the EU 2026 steel safeguard successor regulation (2026-04-13-eu-steel-safeguard-successor-regulation) — Egypt is the first African jurisdiction to implement a comprehensive flat-steel-safeguard trilogy in the 2024-2026 global steel-trade-remedy cycle.
the rates adjusted in the definitive measure?
extensions under the same April 2026 cycle?
consultation request from major exporting WTO Members (China, India, Turkey, Russia)?
the pattern of Egypt's prior flat-steel safeguard (2014–2017)?