(www.chinapaperonline.com) On February 18th, the Tariff Commission of the State Council (TCSC), the top government body deciding on commodity import and export duty in China, announced to accept application from March 2nd by Chinese importers for waiver of punitive tariffs imposed on eligible imports purchased from the United States in accordance with the principles of marketization and commercialization. Once approved, such imports will be free from countermeasures against US 301 measures within the time limit.

Involving 696 items of commodities, the list released by TCSC includes market pulp, paper, paperboard and recovered paper. In particular, the 5% tariff on market pulp, containerboard, coated freesheet and boxboard will be dropped for eligible applicants, which will surely reduce their import cost.

More significant is recovered paper from USA, which has been put under a 25% counter-tax since August 2018. The latest announcement is apparently encouraging to US recovered paper exporters who have supplied nearly half of China’s RCP import needs each year, regardless of the concerns that the current lift can only be a short-term support to RCP exports from USA to China, unless there is a change or extension of Chinese government policy on its planned ban of RCP imports by end-2020.