Government revokes alloy wheel anti-dumping measure

The UK government has accepted a Trade Remedies Authority (TRA) recommendation to vary anti-dumping duties on aluminium road wheels (alloy wheels) from China. In its analysis, the TRA determined that “while the imports of one-piece cast alloy wheels are not damaging the UK’s alloy wheel manufacturing industry, imports of forged one-piece and multi-piece alloy wheels and parts of alloy wheels could cause damage”. The TRA therefore recommended in February to split the measure into two categories – firstly to keep the tariffs on the category of forged one-piece and multi-piece alloy wheels and parts of alloy wheels for five years; and secondly, to remove tariffs on the category of one-piece cast alloy wheels from China.

Although one-piece cast alloy wheels make up an estimated 95 per cent of the UK alloy wheel market, during the TRA’s review no evidence was found to show that UK producers would be injured if the measure was revoked on this type of alloy wheel.

Therefore, the TRA concluded that removing the tariff on one-piece cast alloy wheels would be unlikely to harm UK producers and by removing barriers to imports, it could save UK consumers around £3 million a year.

Protecting UK alloy wheel production?

The total market for UK-produced and imported alloy wheels is estimated to be worth around £300 million annually.

One-piece forged alloy wheels make up around 4 per cent and multi-piece alloy wheels make up around 1 per cent of the UK market. The TRA found evidence of UK production of these types of wheels and so removing the anti-dumping measure could injure UK producers.

The TRA therefore recommended the anti-dumping duty rate of 22.3 per cent should be kept on one-piece forged and multi-piece alloy wheels and on parts of alloy wheels, to protect UK production.

The Trade Remedies Authority initiated this case on 7 October 2021. The Period of Investigation for this review was 1 July 2020 to 30 June 2021. To assess injury, TRA examined the period 1 July 2017 to 30 June 2021 as the injury period (IP).

The official final recommendation is: “…to vary the application of the anti-dumping amount under regulation 100A of the Regulations in relation to aluminium road parts wheels machined from a forged blank or assembled from multiple pieces, or machined of aluminium road wheels, and revoke the application of the anti-dumping amount in relation to all other wheels of aluminium, under regulation 100B of the Regulations.”

The TRA is an arm’s length body of the Department for Business & Trade.