Since September 2019, Saudi Arabia has blocked all the ceramic exports coming from EU-based companies, as a result of the introduction of a new SASO Quality Mark. The process for obtaining the SASO Quality Mark has been discriminatory, costly and non-transparent.
Egypt has continued to restrict access to its ceramic tiles market to 22 European ceramic wall & floor tiles companies. it has been more than three years that the Egyptian Decree No 43 and Decree 992/2015, on the registration of foreign businesses have prevented EU-based ceramic tiles companies from exporting to Egypt.
Ecuador notified the WTO on 6 December about the safeguard investigation that was initiated on 26 November 2016 against surge of imports of ceramic wall and floor tiles. Cerame-Unie/CET have registered as interested party and are taking part in the investigation.
On 12 December 2019, Tariff Commission of the Philippines published a final report on the safeguard investigation on imports of wall and floor tiles from various countries.
The report concluded that there was no increase in imports of ceramic floor and wall tiles, both in absolute terms and relative to domestic production during the period of investigation. A serious injury was not determined, and no unforeseen developments were registered.
As a result of the investigation the Tariff Commission terminated it formal investigation and recommended that no definitive general safeguard measures be imposed on ceramic wall and floor tiles imported to the Philippines under the headings 6907.22 and 6907.23.