Catalog of Prohibited Processing Trade may be Adjusted

Mr. Qi Xiangdong, Deputy Secretary-General from China Iron and Steel Association ("CISA"), revealed that China is to make some adjustment on the catalog of prohibited processing trade.

As per his remarks, since 1999, China has started to apply categorized management of commodities to the processing trade, categorizing the processing trade by commodities into the prohibited, the restricted and the permitted. In order to restrict the exportation of products of "two highs one resource-based" (products of high energy consumption, high pollution, and resource-based), from 2004 till now, China has successively classified part of commodities under the catalog of the prohibited processing trade. As for the processing trade under the aforesaid catalog, the import bonded policy is removed.

According to Mr. Qi Xiangdong, the Ministry of Commerce of China is mainly studying on the catalog of the prohibited processing trade at present. Currently, the exportation of both the processing supplied materials and processing imported materials is duty-free. To adapt to the State policy of restricting part of exports, some tariff may be levied on the exportation of processed imported steels.