steel

STEEL INDUSTRY: INPUT SOUGHT ON IMPORT SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM PROPOSALS

20 August 2025
Trade, Industry & Competition
SA Legal Academy

On behalf of the International Trade Administration Commission (ITAC), the Department of Trade, Industry & Competition has gazetted a notice calling for input by 3 September 2025 on proposed measures under the 1964 Customs & Excise Act intended to protect the local steel and stainless steel industry value chain from an ongoing flood of low-priced imports. This follows a review of the tariff structure announced in January 2025 (when comments were also sought) and a preliminary set of proposals released two months later for further input.

Acknowledging that ‘the ongoing geo-political landscape … constitute(s) an unprecedented emergency, necessitating urgent action in line with Article 19 and Article 21 of the (1941) General Agreement on Tariffs & Trade (GATT)’, the ‘import surveillance system’ envisaged would:

increase the rate of customs duties on certain steel products to ‘their respective bound rates’
introduce ‘additional rebate provisions’ for certain steel products
subject certain steel products to import control
ensure that when standards or compulsory specifications are developed for certain steel-related products they should be ‘incorporated into the import permit control system as additional conditions for … issuing … import permits’
ensure that certain ‘input products used in steelmaking, particularly stainless steel, remain duty free’, and
establish an advisory committee on steel-related matters.

References in the August 2025 and March 2025 notices to the Act’s ‘Chapters 72,73, 82 and 83’ are somewhat confusing, since there appear to be no such chapters in the updated Act. However, according to Engineering News, ‘Chapter 72 … deals with primary carbon and stainless products such as hot-rolled coil; Chapter 73 with steel articles such as wire and pipes; Chapter 82 with tools and cutlery; and Chapter 83 with miscellaneous steel products, including such items as padlocks’.

A Freight News article provides further context to the proposed new measures, among other things noting the ‘serious sustainability challenges’ facing South Africa’s steel industry value chains given:

‘worldwide steel production overcapacity’
the ‘increased trade protectionist measures implemented by some countries’
‘associated trade diversions occurring globally’
persistently slow economic growth locally
‘depressed (local) demand’, and
local energy and freight logistics constraints.

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Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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STEEL INDUSTRY: INPUT SOUGHT ON IMPORT SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM PROPOSALS

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