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Wider steel quotas or tariffs would hit British Columbia hard as the province has historically relied on imports for more than 60 per cent of its annual consumption, according to the Coalition.

Small Percentage

“If they put this quota or tariff on imported materials, we will have no supply,” Anoop Khosla, president of Midvalley Rebar Ltd., said by phone. The Surrey, B.C.-based rebar fabricator and installer sources more than half its supply from offshore countries such as Turkey, Vietnam and Indonesia. “We would have shortages of material come September, October.”

The strain would hit a condo market that saw prices soar 8.3 per cent in Toronto in May from the year before and 20 per cent in Vancouver. Some projects have already been canceled due to rising costs.

To be sure, rebar supply typically only represents about 4 per cent of a project’s cost so a 25 per cent tariff would only result in about a 1 per cent increase in the cost of a building, according data to provided by Altus Group Ltd. Still, the increases are likely to be passed on, Altus said.

Developers aren’t too concerned so far.

Red Ink

“On the jobs that we’ve done, we have already tendered the deal so those prices are locked in,”Geoffrey Matthews, senior vice president of high rise at Great Gulf Group, said by phone. On upcoming developments like the Gehry project in downtown Toronto, the company would likely apply a high contingency against costs at the early stages to manage potential risks, he said.

Koppelaar at Walters is forecasting a further jump in steel prices of as much as 30 per cent if the wider tariffs go through.

“It’s well beyond just that projects will be done at zero profit and well into the fact that we’re going to bleed red ink and different companies will have different capacities for how long they can bleed before they die,” Koppelaar said.

Bloomberg.com