According to Reuters recently learned from EU diplomats and industrial circles, the European Commission will propose on February 18th to impose a punitive temporary tariff of up to 73% on most tiles from China. The implementation of temporary tariffs will be implemented between March 18, 2011 and September 17, 2011, and final announcements will be made after September 18, 2011.
Sources said that the European Commission believes that China illegally pressed down the price of ceramic tiles, making European producers vulnerable to these cheap imported tiles. The European Commission will impose punitive tariffs on cheap tiles from China to protect European tile producers.
The EU is the world's second largest ceramic tile production market, second only to China. A quarter of the tiles produced in the EU are exported, with most producers located in southern European countries such as Portugal, Spain, and Italy. Each year, European consumers newly build tiles of up to 1 billion square meters, of which 70% are from Chinese ceramic tiles, and this proportion continues to rise.
In the past few years, the low prices of Chinese tiles have hit European tile producers severely: According to the European Tile Manufacturers Association, the industry’s average profit was nearly 7% in 2005, and by 2009, this Profit is less than 0.3%.