Turkey on 12 April notified the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Committee on Safeguards that on 06 April it had initiated a safeguard investigation on pneumatic tyres classifiable in the following tariff subheadings:
- 4011.10 New pneumatic tyres, of rubber, of a kind used on motor cars (including station wagons and racing cars)
- 4011.20 New pneumatic tyres, of rubber, of a kind used on buses or lorries
- 4011.70 New pneumatic tyres, of rubber, of a kind used on agricultural or forestry vehicles and Machines
- 4011.80 New pneumatic tyres, of rubber, of a kind used on construction, mining or industrial handling vehicles and machines
- 4011.90 Other New pneumatic tyres, of rubber
In the notification, Turkey indicated that “those who fill out and send Application Form for the Interested Party (application form) to the competent authority within a period of 20 days after the promulgation of the related Communiqué are accepted as interested parties in the investigation. […] The interested parties are required to fill out the Online Questionnaire for the Interested Party (online questionnaire) by logging into http://ithkorunma.ekonomi.gov.tr webpage with the username and password provided by the investigating authority, within a period of 30 days after the initiation of the investigation. […]”.
The developing countries were excluded from the measure as they export less than 3% of imports to Turkey, and it included all the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) countries - Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, and Swaziland.
