The European Commission, which has now included the UK among the countries that are subject to import quotas for steel products, has also reduced the existing quota volumes for other countries which were already under the quota scheme. The reduced quotas will be in force as of January 1, 2021, and so in the two last quarters under the quota regime the countries will have less opportunity to export to the EU. The EC said that the changes in quota volumes “result only from the new import dataset used for quota allocation”.

The EC reduced the quotas for the other countries in order to adjust the import volumes now that the UK is also included in the quota regime. However, it should be noted that the quota volumes for rebar were also adjusted even though the UK is not one of the countries which are subject to an import quota for the said product.

Accordingly, as regards the quotas for Turkey for the first quarter of 2021, the reinforcing bar quota has been reduced to 58,826 mt from 75,123 mt, and the wire rod quota has been reduced to 76,362 mt from 77,750 mt.