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NAFTA Steel Associations and ILAFA Agree on Common Work Program

October 16, 2007 ( Miami, FL )

Representatives of five major NAFTA steel associations – American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI), Steel Manufacturers Association (SMA), Specialty Steel Industry of North America (SSINA), Canadian Steel Producers Association (CSPA) and Mexican Steel Producers Association (CANACERO) – met with representatives of the Latin American Iron and Steel Association (ILAFA) on October 11 to discuss trade and other policy issues of common concern. 

The steel producers of North, Central and South America agreed to initiate a common work program encompassing the following key points and principles: 

  • We support rules-based free trade in raw materials, steel and steel-containing goods.
  • We support the elimination of government subsidies to steel and steel-related industries.
  • We support market-based competition and private ownership of steel companies everywhere.
  • We support an end to restrictions by governments on direct foreign investment in steel companies.
  • We support effective national trade laws to counter trade-distorting practices by governments and producers -- in particular, in non-market economies.
  • We are concerned about ongoing policies and market interventions by governments that have led to excess capacity and injurious surges of exports of steel and steel-containing goods to the Americas.
  •  We will keep each other, as well as our respective governments, informed, where appropriate, regarding bilateral steel policy dialogues with other governments and producers.
  • We support the development of a global sectoral approach to climate change in which all major steel-producing countries, including China and India, contribute to a global solution to the climate change challenge.
  • We pledge to increase our cooperation on trade and other policy issues of common concern that are under discussion in the OECD Steel Committee.
  •  We agree to meet at least once a year, going forward, to review the progress that is being made on these common points and principles.

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Contact:

Ron Watkins
President, CSPA
(613) 238-6049