Posted on 11 Jun 2021
China’s General Administration of Customs (GACC) has announced that from June 10, it would no longer inspect five grades of imported steel scrap when cargoes arrive in China, while conversely, “strict inspections” are to be conducted on another five grades of recycled steel-related raw materials. But industry insiders in Shanghai have played down the significance of the GACC announcement, suggesting GACC is merely formalizing arrangements that have been in place since the beginning of this year.
The five types of imported steel scrap for which inspections will not be conducted are shredded scrap, scrap and waste of cans, remelted ingots, scrap and waste of pressed auto bodies, and scrap and waste of hardware and electric appliances. The HS codes are 7204300000、7204490010、7204490020、720449009 and 7204500000, according to CACC’s announcement.
As Mysteel Global reported, China had liberalized in the importation of foreign steel scrap starting January 1 this year, ending the long-established import quota scheme while at the same time, adopting new standards for “recycled iron-steel raw materials”. With the issuance of the new and detailed criteria for recycled steel raw materials, only steel scrap which meets China’s quality requirements listed in official document GB/T 39733-2020 are approved for import.
The five grades listed above are not, in fact, on the new standards list, which – by extension – means that the import of such materials has been banned since the start of this year, anyway. Why GACC felt it needed to issue the statement is not clear, but a scrap industry source implied it was just a note for clarification.
“Imports of those five grades have been banned since January 1, so there are no inspection procedures. But as China had imported these materials years ago, GACC still has historical data, so the HS codes for the five are still needed and cannot be deleted or removed,” she said.
On the other hand, though the Customs announcement said that imported commodity inspections would start on another five grades of steel scrap meeting the requirements of GB/T 39733-2020, “it was just an official notice, as the extremely strict checks have already been done since the beginning of this year when China reopened its market to scrap imports,” according to her.
“CACC’s inspection adjustments have triggered discussions and confusion among market participants. However, there is no need to have too many concerns, as the impact will be minimal,” she added.
The HS codes of these five materials are 7204100010 (waste and scrap of cast iron)、7204210010 (waste and scrap of stainless steel) 、7204290010 (other recycled steel raw materials)、7204410010 (turnings, shavings, chips, milling waste, sawdust, filings, trimmings and stampings, whether or not in bundles)、7204490030 (unlisted recycled steel raw materials), Mysteel Global noted.
Over January-April, China imported 161,639 tonnes of steel scrap in total, way above the 5,379 tonnes imported during the first four months of last year, the GACC data showed.
The GACC’s statement also said that from June 10, Customs will conduct commodity inspections on exports of billet and pig iron. No details were given, however.
Source:Mysteel Global
