European vehicle manufacturers have been dealt a blow after the EU confirmed that it would impose a five-year anti-dumping tariff on imports of Chinese aluminium car wheels.
The 22.3% duty is an increase on a provisional tariff introduced in May, which was set at 20.6%.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Whilst the news will come as a welcome development by European wheel companies, it had been strongly opposed in its run up by the car manufacturers, who argued that they now face rising costs in an already hostile economic environment.
One estimate has suggested that the tariff will add more than EUR300m (US$414m) to the cost of wheels bought in the EU per annum. About 1m wheels came from China last year.
However, the EU said the benefits of the anti-dumping duty for European aluminium-wheel producers outweigh the disadvantages for carmakers. It argued that with aluminium road wheels making up only about 1% of the cost of a car, automakers face a maximum cost increase of 0.22%.
