South Africa has started a safeguard investigation concerning certain flat-rolled products of iron or non-alloy steel. The announcement was made through an official notification.
According to the notification, "Interested parties must make themselves known within a period of 20 days after the initiation of the investigation.
Any information that the interested parties may wish to submit in writing and any request for a hearing before the Commission that they may wish to put forward should be submitted within 20 days following the initiation of this investigation to the Directorate: Trade Remedies I at the following address:
The DTI Campus, 77 Meintjies Street, Sunnyside Pretoria, Block Uuzaji, Ground Floor, tel: +27 12 394 3600, fax +27 12 394 0518."
The notification can be found under document G/SG/N/6/ZAF/*.
A safeguard investigation is used to determine if increased imports of a product are causing or threatening serious injury to a domestic industry. During this process, importers, exporters and other stakeholders have an opportunity to provide evidence and opinions as well as respond to submissions from others. If it is found that rising imports are harming or could harm local producers, a WTO member country can temporarily restrict those imports.