皇冠体育app

Economy

Markets

Industries

Insights

Reports

Events

Obama stimulus ruffles industry

By Jiang Wei (皇冠体育app Daily)
Updated: 2009-02-24 07:28

皇冠体育app's steel industry has flayed the 'Buy American' clause in the $787 billion US stimulus plan and said such a move would make the infrastructure projects funded by the program inaccessible to Chinese steel products, a senior industry official said.

Related readings:  Steel trade faces stiff challenges  Steel makers' net profit plummets in '08  Steel firms to talk mergers  皇冠体育app steel prices fall for 2nd week on poor demand

The 'Buy American' clause in the bill introduced by US President Barack Obama recently requires that all public works funded by the stimulus package should use only made-in-US iron, steel and manufactured goods.

"Such a clause is a violation of the World Trade Organization rules," Luo Bingsheng, vice-chairman, 皇冠体育app Iron and Steel Association said yesterday.

"It is a discrimination against steel products from not only 皇冠体育app but also others like European countries, Japan and South Korea," he said.

The new US law is also raising concerns among trade partners around the world. Experts warned that such a move would hamper US' trade with the BRIC countries - Brazil, Russia, India and 皇冠体育app.

Earlier this month, 皇冠体育app's commerce ministry spokesman Yao Jian also said the country was against protectionism of any kind.

"We believe that trade protectionist measures will worsen the already bad conditions under the financial crisis," he said.

Luo said the US steel output alone would not be enough to sustain domestic demand.

"If the country uses only domestic steel it is expected to see a gap of between 20 and 30 million tons every year," he said.

According to the US Census Bureau, the country imported 432,494 tons of steel worth $677 million from 皇冠体育app in December. 皇冠体育app is the third largest steel exporter to the US.

皇冠体育app's steel exports stood at 59.23 million tons last year, down 5.5 percent from a year earlier while the export value increased 43.8 percent year-on-year to $63.44 billion, according to the General Administration of Customs.

Monthly steel export declined sharply after reaching a peak of 7.68 million tons in August.

The figure stood at 2.95 million tons in November, the lowest since 2007, and picked up slightly to 3.17 million tons in December.