EU extends anti-dumping duties on Chinese fasteners
11 May 2015
On the 27th March the European Commission published Implementing Regulation EU 2015/519 extending the anti-dumping duty on certain iron and steel fasteners originating in the People’s Republic of China and also consigned from Malaysia for a further five years.
The new regulation concluded the Expiry Review initiated on 30th January 2014 at the request of the European Industrial Fasteners Institute. EU anti-dumping measures are normally imposed for a five year period after which they automatically expire unless an expiry review demonstrates the need for them to continue. In requesting the review the EIFI provided detailed evidence, according to its president amounting to 2,000 pages, that the termination of the measures was likely to result in a continuation or recurrence of dumping and injury.
An expiry review only considers the issues of dumping, injury and community interest to determine whether measures should be extended or terminated. It is not able to consider or amend the level of duty applied – this requires an Interim Review.
Ninety-one EU fastener producers offered to cooperate with the Review, representing around half of the EU’s total production of the fastener ranges under consideration. The investigation selected a sample of eleven companies to visit and investigate in detail. It also visited two importers, one German, one Polish, which had applied to cooperate. The European Fastener Distributors’ Association and the British & Irish Association of Fastener Distributors both registered as interested parties in the investigation and made detailed submissions to it.
The Review identified ”several elements of concern, including large spare capacity available in the PRC, continuation of dumping and underselling practices worldwide, planned development of production capacity, product range and product complexity in the PRC, as well as growing trade barriers in other main third countries markets”. On the other hand, the investigation said: “Union consumption has been stagnating in the last five years” leading to “a state of vulnerability of the Union industry... characterised by a certain degree of spare capacity, low profits and business uncertainty”. The Review determined that “the repeal of the measures would with all probability lead to the sudden return of Chinese dumped imports, and that this would weaken the position of the Union industry in its core market.”
The Review concluded that “the continuation of measures would benefit the Union industry because the Union producers should be able to maintain their sales volumes, market share, profitability and overall positive economic situation. By contrast, the discontinuation of the measures would seriously threaten the viability of the Union industry because there are reasons to expect a shift of the Chinese imports to the Union market at dumped prices and in considerable volumes that would cause recurrence of injury”.
The Review decided the extension of the measures would not be against the interests of importers arguing that the sector had demonstrated its ability to transfer its purchases to other non-EU countries. No users or user representative groups cooperated with the Review. However, it interpreted their interests from the information provided by the fastener manufacturers and importers concluding: “…users can be… divided in two categories: High-end users, which need fasteners with very high-quality standards, and other users. High-end users could normally find the products they need from Union producers and from some highly specialised exporting producers. …the other users’ category (which might also include high-end users in need of cheaper products for less demanding applications) is the category of users which normally resorted to Chinese products. This category of users is normally served by importers, and according to the views collected while visiting cooperating importers, this category of users is now sufficiently supplied by imports from other countries, including Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.”
Anti-dumping duties of up to 74.1%, were reimposed on imports of wood screws, self-tapping screws, other screws and bolts, and washers, originating from China. The maximum duty was also reimposed on the cited fasteners consigned from Malaysia – except from nine companies previously granted exemptions. Precise details of the CN codes affected and ranges of duties applied to specific exporters, together with the Review’s detailed findings and conclusions, may be found by downloading a copy of EU Regulation 2015/519 from the EU Official Journal.
