Saudi Arabia Exempts Import Tariff on Reinforcing Steel Bars

According to the report on April 12, 2010 from the Arab News, Saudi Arabia Government decided to exempt the import tariff on reinforcing steel bars to relieve the shortage situation.

It is estimated that the steel demand will rise by 8% to 6.4 million tons as the startup of numbers of large projects in Saudi Arabia. Recently, the steel price takes on an unreasonable rising due to the panic caused by the short supply in steel market.

From January 2010, Sandi Arabia imposed 5% tariff on imported steels, and the price of billet steels exported to Sandi Arabia also rose accordingly, which caused the price of reinforcing steel bars to rise to USD 880 per ton from USD 550 per ton.

Sandi Arabia taking the measure of tariff exemption aims to relieve the contradiction between supply and demand by increasing the import of reinforcing steel bars to meet the demand from the construction market, and to avoid the delay of project schedules.