US ALUMINUM WEEK - Aluminum Association taking on China at ITC hearing

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Washington DC 29/09/2016 - AMM - by Kirk Maltais 

Washington DC 29/09/2016 - US regulators must hold China accountable for its aluminium overcapacity and allegedly unfair business practices, Aluminum Association executives said during a press conference Sept. 28.

“We're committed to standing up and crying foul when rules are being violated,” Garney Scott, chairman of the Aluminum Association and president and chief executive officer of Waverly, Tenn.-based Scepter Inc., said during the association's annual meeting, held with the Aluminum Extruders Council's 2016 Management Conference in Washington.

Both Scott and association president and chief executive officer Heidi Brock were set to give testimony before the U.S. International Trade Commission in a public hearing Sept. 29. The main goal of the Arlington, Va.-based association is to describe how Chinese aluminum suppliers are allegedly cheating the market and rendering domestic players uncompetitive.

“We're really trying to focus our efforts to strike at the heart of the problem,” according to Matt Aboud, president of Baltimore-based Hydro Aluminum Metals USA LLC and a member of the association's board of directors. “The heart of the problem is the overcapacity combined with a non-market economy. That's really where the effort is. You can put in these other enforcement rules and trade remedies, but that's not addressing the real problem.”

“It's in China's interest to have a sustainable industry,” Brock said. “They're an important global market player. It's in China's interest to make sure that they respond to market forces ... that the rules that have been agreed to are followed.”

If the Chinese aluminum industry seeks to have a global marketplace to sell to, then it must act in accordance with global market conditions. That requirement should serve as leverage for Chinese producers to cooperate with U.S. regulators, she said.

The association acknowledged the possibility of noncooperation by Chinese producers, but didn't signal its next move in such a scenario.

“We're not planning to walk away from this,” Brock said. “We will continue to keep talking about the issues. ... We have not taken anything off the table.”

The ITC hearing is set to include testimonials from aluminium suppliers worldwide, including members of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association as well as representatives of Moscow-based United Co. Rusal and Emirates Global Aluminum/Dubal America.

Chinese suppliers aren't showing any signs of slowing their installation of new capacity. While 600,000 tonnes of capacity have been taken offline this year, 2.4 million tonnes have come online and another 2.7 million tonnes are under construction, according to Alan Clark, director of Adelaide, Australia-based CM Group.

Metal Bulletin, the global metals and mining price reporting agency that also owns AMM, recently acquired 100 percent of the shares of FastMarkets Ltd.



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