The Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation has proposed to prohibit the import of Ukrainian railway wheels into Russia. This was reported to RBK sources in a major railway operator and an interlocutor at the Union of Railroad Transport Operators (UCLT) who attended meetings with the ministry in early September where this initiative was discussed.
The decision will be made at the government level, but it is planned to introduce a ban before the end of 2020, added the interlocutors of RBC.
The Ministry of Transport declined to comment, RBC sent a request to the government press service and the representative of First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov, who oversees transport. A representative of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) said that the agency had not received such proposals from the Ministry of Transport.
In 2019, Interpipe, the largest Ukrainian manufacturer of railway wheels, delivered 223 thousand units of products to the Russian market. At the same time, from April 2018 to the end of August 2019, anti-dumping duties in the amount of 34.22% of their value imposed by the Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC) were applied to Ukrainian wheels. Due to the shortage of wheels, the EEC suspended this duty from August 25, 2019. But from June 2, 2020, the commission again introduced a duty on Interpipe products.
