UKRAINE: USITC REVIEW OF STEEL ANTIDUMPING AND

UNCLAS KYIV 001776 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE PLEASE PASS TO USITC FOR LSCHLITT STATE PLEASE PASS TO USTR FOR KLEIN/MOLNAR USDOC FOR 4231/ITA/OEENIS/NISD/CLUCYCK STATE FOR EUR/UMB, EB/TPP/BTA, EB/TPP/MTA E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ETRD ECON UP SUBJECT: UKRAINE: USITC REVIEW OF STEEL ANTIDUMPING AND COUNTERVAILING DUTY ORDERS REF: STATE 81993 Treat as Sensitive but Unclassified. Contains business proprietary information. Not for Internet. ¶1. (U) In response to reftel, Post formally requested the GOU to provide information regarding the production of steel products covered by the upcoming ITC five-year review of antidumping and countervailing duty orders. We received a response from the Ministry of Economy on July 18. An unofficial translation of the letter is provided below. (Note: This letter contains business proprietary data in the form of two data tables, which should be protected accordingly. Para 2 below is marked SBU solely because of the business proprietary contents of these two data tables. End Note.) ¶2. (SBU) BEGIN TEXT OF LETTER July 18, 2007 # 142-26-7/292 Deputy Economic Counselor U.S. Embassy to Ukraine J.P. Schutte Information regarding the U.S. Department of Commerce's five-year review of the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on hot-rolled steel products from Ukraine Dear Mr. Schutte, As to your request of June 21, 2007 to provide information on Ukrainian exports of hot-rolled steel products to the U.S., the Ministry of Economy has coordinated its efforts together with the Ministry of Industrial Policy and Ukrainian producers of the subject merchandise to inform you of following. The producers of hot-rolled steel products in Ukraine are: OJSC "Mariupol Steel Mill named after Illich" and OJSC "Zaporizhsteel." All the information regarding your request has been provided based on the data of OJSC "Mariupol Steel Mill named after Illich." Year Capacity Output Capacity (thousands (thousands Utilization of tons) of tons) -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- 2001 3800 2810.45 73.96% 2002 3800 3049.74 80.26% 2003 3800 3402.51 89.54% 2004 3800 3640.07 95.79% 2005 3800 3744.30 98.53% 2006 3800 3647.88 96.00% Year Supplies to Domestic Market -------------- -------------- Quantity Value (thousands of tons) (thousands UAH) -------------- -------------- 2001 83.4 66174.1 2002 166.0 153365.9 2003 130.5 155363.0 2004 258.0 497653.9 2005 217.2 447059.4 2006 306.7 671343.9 We would also like to mention that it is not possible to provide official statistics on export of the relevant products to the U.S., because there is no table matching the codes of the U.S. HTS and Ukraine's Single Trade Registry of Foreign Trade Commodities. Considering the fact that the information provided in this letter contains data on output and sales of a company, the Ministry of Economy requests confidential status for this information according to an Administrative Protection Order. The Department of Antidumping Investigations and Protection of Domestic Market confirms its commitment to future cooperation, should you have any questions. [Signature] ¶N. Sydoruk Deputy Director Department of Antidumping Investigations and Protection of Domestic Market END TEXT OF LETTER ¶3. (U) Econoff followed up with Natasha Sydoruk from the Ministry of Economy on July 19 to encourage the GOU to provide additional information. Sydoruk, referring to the July 18 letter, said that differences between U.S. and Ukrainian descriptions of the relevant products made it very difficult for Ukraine to provide data on exports of these products. Sydoruk added that, even with further clarification of the products involved, the GOU would not be able to provide additional information concerning exports within the timeframe necessary to have an impact on the ITC's review. TAYLOR