The U.K. added Iceland to its list of permitted destinations under its open general export license for dual-use items. In another notice concerning the OGEL for printed circuit boards and components for dual-use goods, the Department for International Trade announced it's now requiring registration before first use of the license. In a notice concerning the OGELs for the export of military goods brought into the U.K. for repairs, the DIT said it now permits those items to be reexported after repairs in the U.K. or the country of original manufacture.
The U.K.'s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation updated its general financial sanctions guidance to discuss aggregation. The new paragraphs say that OFSI doesn't simply aggregate different designated individuals' holdings in a company when making an ownership assessment unless the shares are subject to a joint arrangement between the designated parties or one party controls the other's shares. "Consequently, if each of the designated person’s holdings falls below the 50% threshold in respect of share ownership and there is no evidence of a joint arrangement or that the shares are held jointly, the company would not be directly or indirectly owned by a designated person," the guidance said.
Serbia recently imposed an export ban on refined edible sunflower oil and loosened export restrictions on shipments of raw sunflower oil, the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service said in a March 23 report. The ban, which took effect March 18, added refined sunflower oil to a range of other agricultural goods subject to export restrictions, including wheat, wheat flour, rye, corn and cornmeal, the agency said. Goods that have been “custom cleared and are enroute to borders” aren’t subject to the export ban, USDA said.
The EU imposed an antidumping duty on imports of calcium silicon from China, the European Commission said in a March 23 regulation. Following a complaint from Euroalliages, an association of European ferro-alloy producers, a commission investigation found that Chinese calcium silicon exporters were dumping subject product into the EU. The trade remedy applies to "calcium silicon, currently falling under CN codes ex 7202 99 80 and ex 2850 00 60," and consists of the following AD rates: 31.5% for Ningxia Ketong New Material Technology Co., 42.7% for Ningxia Shun Tai Smelting Co., 32.8% for Shaanxi Shenghua Metallurgy-Chemical Co., and 50.7% for all other companies.
The U.K. Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation published a General License permitting until May 2 the "winding down of any derivatives, repurchase, and reverse repurchase transactions" made before March 1 with the Russian Central Bank, the Russian National Wealth Fund or the Russian Finance Ministry. The license took effect March 22.
The top trade official on the European Commission said that Russia's barbaric invasion of Ukraine revealed how important it was that he and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai "spent last year fixing some aspects of U.S.-EU relations," and then moved to a forward-looking agenda with the Trade and Technology Council. Tai, who spoke remotely to the Brussels business audience hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in the EU on March 24, called EC Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis a good friend.
U.K. International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyan will be "calling in" the Trade Remedies Authority's recommendation relating to British steel safeguard measures, the Department for International Trade said. By doing so, the secretary now decides whether to vary, maintain or revoke the measures, taking into account the TRA's findings. In June 2021, the TRA recommended extending the safeguard measures on 10 product categories for three years and revoking the measures on nine product categories. She accepted the recommendation, also providing for a 12-month extension of the current protections for five of the nine product categories originally floated for revocation.
The U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council has so far made “good progress” on export controls and foreign investment screening, but both sides can do more to further harmonize their trade and investment restrictions, said Valdis Dombrovskis, the EU’s top trade official. Speaking at the European Parliament this week, Dombrovskis said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine highlights the need for more trade collaboration.
BALTIMORE -- U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai continued to throw cold water on the idea of reviving negotiations for a free-trade agreement with the United Kingdom, saying, "A free trade agreement is a tool. It is a very 20th century tool. It has its place certainly in the toolbox," she said, but said that she wants these U.K.-U.S. economic dialogues to be "maximally responsive" to today's trade challenges. She said she wants to make sure "that we don’t spend years and spend a lot of blood, sweat and tears working on something that isn't going to be relevant to the needs of our people or our economies."
The U.K.'s Trade and Agriculture Commission opened a period to receive feedback on whether measures in the new U.K.-New Zealand free trade agreement relating to agricultural products may affect British regulatory standards over animal or plant life, animal welfare or environmental protection. Announcing the consultation period, the Department for International Trade said the window to submit feedback closes April 22. The TAC wants submissions about the differences between the applicable standards to activities in the U.K. and New Zealand.