Anchor: The European Union announced Wednesday that it would impose provisional safeguard measures on steel imports. The move, which came into effect on Thursday, is likely to deal a blow to South Korea’s steel industry. 
Cho Sung-min has more. 

Report: The European Union(EU) imposed provisional safeguard measures on some 23 imported steel product categories effective Thursday. 

According to the European Commission, the new quota and tariff measures are aimed at preventing steel products flooding into European markets following the latest U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum.  

The Trump administration hit the EU, Canada and Mexico with tariffs of 25 percent on steel and ten percent on aluminum at the start of June.  

The commission said the quotas for the steel products have been set at the average import level over the past three years, with a 25 percent tariff imposed for volumes exceeding those amounts. 

It also added it is monitoring the situation to see if it needs to issue additional safeguard measures on imported aluminum products.

This means countries including South Korea, China, India and Russia are expected to be dealt with massive trade blows as they are the main exporters of steel to the EU.   

Seoul's Foreign Ministry said South Korea ships out three-point-three million tons of the 23 steel products to the European market. The outbound shipment is worth around two-point-nine billion dollars.

The figure indicates it is inevitable for the South Korean steel sector to suffer back-to-back hits from the recent U.S. protectionist measures and the latest EU safeguard.
Cho Sung-min, KBS World Radio News.