Protective quotas for the first quarter confirm China's return to Europe

Data on the level of use of EU protective quotas for the first quarter point to a sudden increase in imports of Chinese origin into the bloc.

During the first four days of January, when new protective quotas became available, China completely exhausted six of its country-specific product quotas, according to data compiled by UK Steel. These include tinplate (subgroup 6), electrical steel coils (3b), commercial steel and light sections (12), stainless steel and light sections (14), sheet piles (18) and seamless pipes (24).

For example, for electrical steel coils (3b), EU Customs has already cleared twice the existing duty-free quota of 29,000 tons.

According to the Eurofer steel association, in 2022 a new record level of finished steel products was imported into Europe, exceeding 31 million tons. However, in the fourth quarter, the use of EU common duty-free quotas decreased by 22 percentage points compared to the third quarter and by 26 percentage points compared to the fourth quarter of 2021.

Eurofer data also shows that in 2022, China shipped the largest volume of finished steel products to Europe since 2017, reaching almost 3 million tons.