US urged to probe dramatic increase in imports of Chinese aluminium

The domestic aluminium industry in the US has demanded investigation into subsidies granted by Chinese administration to aluminium producers. This comes on the back of surge in imports of finished and semi-finished aluminium from China into the US. The demand was raised by Chicago-based Century Aluminium Company and the United Steelworkers union.

The team of researchers who visited China during last year had stated that they had received clear evidence for allowance of billions of dollars in subsidies by the Chinese administration to some local aluminium companies. The companies were also found to have received low-interest loans. The slowdown in Chinese economy has led to less demand for aluminium produced in that country. The sharp drop in demand has led to oversupply of metals including aluminium. Consequently, there has been a surge in shipments out of the country. The cheaper Chinese aluminium products have continued to flood the US market for more than a year now.

According to official data, the total value of aluminium exports from China has multiplied four-folds from $6.2 billion in 2006 to $23.8 billion in 2015. Also, aluminium production in China has surged by over 30% in 2015 to nearly 32 million metric tons. Meantime, the US imports of semi-fabricated aluminium products from China have risen sharply by over 180 per cent during this period. On the other hand, the US primary aluminium production fell sharply by 7.2 per cent from 1.71 million metric tons in 2014 to 1.59 million metric tons in 2015. The secondary alloys production by the country too declined by nearly 2.5 per cent in 2015 over the previous year.

According to Century Aluminum and the USW, dumping of cheaper aluminium products from China has severely damaged local aluminium producers in the US. They urged the federal government to launch fresh investigation into alleged subsidized aluminum production by Chinese mills.