Sinon may lose exemption from EU's herbicide tariff

Sinon Corp (興農) may lose an exemption from a EU herbicide duty meant to protect producers in the bloc including Monsanto Co and Syngenta AG from cheaper imports.

Last September the EU exempted Sinon from a 29.9 percent "anti-dumping" tariff on glyphosate, used to remove weeds before crop planting, from China, Taiwan and Malaysia.

The European Commission yesterday opened a probe into whether Sinon has a previously undisclosed link to a Taiwanese exporter subject to the five-year levy.

"It should be examined whether in fact Sinon met all the conditions for exemption," the commission, the EU's trade authority in Brussels, said in the Official Journal.

"Sinon did not disclose or acknowledge the existence of any relationship with the second Tai-wanese company," it said.

A report from a business that specializes in supplying company-specific information including shareholdings indicates a relationship between Sinon and a second Taiwanese exporter of glyphosate, according to the commission, which didn't elaborate.

It gave interested parties 21 days to make their views known.

The EU duty on glyphosate targets Taiwan and Malaysia because European regulators concluded that Chinese exporters had bypassed an earlier levy by shipping via the two other nations.

The bloc exempted Sinon and Malaysia's Crop Protection after determining that their exports to Europe weren't influenced by the levy against China, whose glyphosate makers include Zhejiang Xinan Chemical Industrial Group Co (浙江新安化學集團).

The EU introduced a five-year anti-dumping duty of 24 percent on glyphosate from China in 1998. It raised the levy to 48 percent in 2000 and then extended it to Taiwan and Malaysia in 2002 before imposing the new duty of 29.9 percent against all three countries last September. Sinon and Crop Protection have been exempted since the start of the duties against Taiwan and Malaysia.

Missouri-based Monsanto produces glyphosate in Belgium. Switzerland-based Syngenta produces it in the UK.