As part of an ongoing undertaking to deal with increasing volumes of low-priced seamless stainless steel tubing from China, the U.S. producers which comprise the Seamless Stainless Tube Trade Action Committee have expressed their growing concern with the rapidly expanding Chinese presence in the U.S. market.
David A. Hartquist, the SSTTAC's legal counsel, said, "As the U.S. Census Bureau's most recently released data underscore, China's exports of seamless stainless steel tubing to the United States are surging. China is now the largest foreign supplier overall of this tubing to the United States, at prices that are notably depressed. Even in categories in which it presently is not the largest supplier, such as high-nickel seamless tubing, it can be expected that China will soon overtake the current largest foreign supplier, Germany."
Through September 2007, imports into the United States of seamless stainless steel tubing from China for the year doubled from the corresponding period of the first nine months of 2006 to 15,131 tons at US$6,265/ton, almost 31 percent of total imports of 48,879 tons from all foreign sources having an average unit value of US$9,115/ton. Imports of high-nickel seamless tubing from China during the same period were 245 tons at US$1,917/ton, as compared with 944 tons imported at US$7,976/ton from Germany.