SHANGHAI — China will remove a 40-percent export tax on coke in 2013.

Coke was nowhere to be found on the list of 2013 export and import taxes released Monday by the country’s Ministry of Finance.

"The export tax on coke is scrapped," an official with the ministry’s taxation department confirmed to AMM sister publication Steel First.

"A cut on the tax is expected, but a removal shows the government’s resolution. China is under pressure from the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the overcapacity of the industry needs an outlet as well," an industry analyst in Beijing said.

Talks of a cut or removal of the export tax first surfaced in August 2012.

China had until year-end to act under WTO rulings against the country’s alleged restrictions on raw material exports.

The WTO backed claims brought by the United States, the European Union and Mexico that Chinese export tariffs and quotas on a range of raw materials, including bauxite, coke, fluorspar, magnesium, manganese, silicon carbide, silicon metal, yellow phosphorous and zinc, broke WTO rules and distorted global markets.

China imposed a 40-percent export tax on coke in late 2008 as part of a broader policy to restrict the export of raw materials.

The country exported 960,000 tonnes of coke during the first 11 months of 2012, putting the annualized rate at 1.05 million tonnes for 2012. That’s down 91.3 percent from the level recorded in 2008, according to customs data.

China’s coke production remains high at 407.36 million tonnes for the first 11 months of this year, which yields an annualized rate of 444.39 million tonnes.

Exports so far this year only represent 0.2 percent of China’s production.

A version of this article was first published by AMM sister publication Steel First.