98/562/EC: Commission Decision of 29 September 1998 on the statistical surveillance within the Community of exports of secondary copper raw materials (notified under document number C(1998) 2739) (Text with EEA relevance)

COMMISSION DECISION of 29 September 1998 on the statistical surveillance within the Community of exports of secondary copper raw materials (notified under document number C(1998) 2739) (Text with EEA relevance) (98/562/EC)
THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES
,
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community,
Having regard to Council Regulation (EEC) No 2603/69 of 20 December 1969 establishing common rules for exports (1), as last amended by Regulation (EEC) No 3918/91 (2), and in particular Article 5 thereof,
After consulting the committee set up by Article 4 of Regulation (EEC) No 2603/69,
(1) Whereas Community refiners and fabricators have been, for some time, experiencing supply difficulties over the whole spectrum of copper materials; whereas the copper scrap market in particular is characterised by scarcity and is, consequently, highly competitive and inelastic on the supply side; whereas the Community industry is facing a significant decline in its room for manoeuvre in relation to the amount of financial return it can expect from refining copper from scrap metal;
(2) Whereas exports of copper scrap were subject, until 1990, to production of a prior export licence to be issued by the appropriate authorities of the Member States; whereas, since then, no similar arrangement has been in force;
(3) Whereas the difficulties of the Community industry in finding access to secondary copper raw materials started to increase following the lifting of that commercial policy measure;
(4) Whereas the Community industry claims that those difficulties are due to overbidding practices on the Community and world markets, mainly by Chinese, Indian and South Korean buyers, which are rendered possible by the differentiated tariff structure of those countries; whereas it submitted to the Commission information designed to demonstrate the existence of those practices;
(5) Whereas the existence of alternative sources of supply, in particular in eastern Europe, is likely to be short term as local industry increases demand and national authorities reinforce controls and export restrictions;
(6) Whereas, following receipt of the information provided by the Community industry, the Commission launched an examination concerning the conditions under which the international and Community copper scrap supply markets are operating by a notice published (3) in the Official Journal of the European Communities; whereas this examination has shown that the tariff differentiation applicable in India, South Korea and the People's Republic of China between secondary copper raw materials and refined copper appears to be likely to confer a competitive advantage on those countries' producers and to disrupt copper scrap supply markets;
(7) Whereas, however, there does not appear to be any violation by the countries concerned of international trade rules, whether multilateral or laid down in bilateral agreements; whereas the Chinese tariff structure is the subject of ongoing negotiations in the perspective of future accession of the People's Republic of China to the World Trade Organisation;
(8) Whereas bilateral consultations with Indian and South Korean authorities are ongoing or will be started as soon as possible in order to find a mutually acceptable solution to this problem;
(9) Whereas, in parallel with those consultations, it is desirable to follow closely the trend of exports of the products concerned; whereas an a posteriori monitoring system should be put in place in order to gather more specific information with a view to assessing the possible causal link between the abovementioned tariff policies and the adverse effects on the Community industry; whereas such a system would achieve the twofold objective of providing the Commission with a deeper insight into the market in question in the shortest possible time as well as sending to the third countries' authorities and to the Community industry involved a signal on the importance attached by the Community to this matter;
(10) Whereas a duration of two years seems to be the most appropriate for getting a comprehensive and reliable picture of the market trends; whereas the system envisaged would be simple to adopt and to administer and it would not impose any extra burdens on Community exporters or require them to provide any information additional to that which they are already required to provide,