UK consulting on steel tariff plan after warnings from users

By Alistair Smout

LONDON, June 10 (Reuters) - Britain is seeking views from industry on its new steel tariff regime, the government said on Wednesday, as it considers changes to the proposed scheme after users of the metal warned of heavy costs on their businesses.

Like other countries and the European Union, Britain is moving to protect domestic steel producers as they flag concern over the "dumping" of highly subsidised steel from countries such as China.

In March, Britain proposed to cut its tariff-free quota on imported steel and double the tariff on imports exceeding that allowance, in a new trade measure due to come in on July 1 which was welcomed by the British steel industry.

But firms from other sectors have expressed concern about the impact of the plan on their costs, and the British Chambers of Commerce has warned of "real financial and logistics problems" for steel-consuming industries including construction, engineering and manufacturing.

A spokesperson for the Department for Business and Trade said the trade measure "aims to strike the right balance between protecting domestic production and maintaining a secure supply".

"We always said we would take feedback from industry about the measures and conduct a review after 12 months to ensure it remains effective, and that's exactly what we're doing," the spokesperson said.

A Sky News report on possible modifications to the plans said there could be a "partial U-turn" in which a greater number of steel products might be exempted from the restrictions.

Industry group UK Steel said it would fully support targeted amendments and didn't agree that accepting those would be a U-turn, adding that it had itself proposed changes to help other sectors access the steel they needed.

The group has engaged with manufacturers "to identify areas where amendments are required to ensure the measure provides the protection steelmakers need whilst causing the minimum amount of disruption to the broader manufacturing sector", said Gareth Stace, director general of UK Steel.

Britain and the EU are in talks over their respective steel measures, with UK trade minister Chris Bryant previously indicating that the two sides should be able to agree mutually beneficial exemptions.

(Reporting by Alistair Smout, Muvija M and Sam Tabahriti, writing by Alistair Smout, editing by William James and Jan Harvey)