The EU may impose tariffs on polyester fibers from Taiwan and Malaysia to protect EU producers including Spain's Catalana de Polimers SA and Ireland's Wellman International Ltd from cheaper imports.
The EU yesterday opened an inquiry into whether Taiwanese and Malaysian exporters sold polyester staple fibers in Europe below prices in their own countries or below the cost of production, a practice known as dumping. The product is used in clothes, bed linen and furniture fillings.
The inquiry would determine whether the product was "being dumped and whether this dumping has caused injury," the European Commission, the 25-nation EU's executive arm in Brussels, said in the Official Journal.
EU imports of polyester staple fibers from Taiwan rose to 111,400 tonnes last year from 71,700 tonnes the year before and imports from Malaysia grew nearly threefold to 16,500 tonnes over the same period, according to the International Rayon and Synthetic Fibres Committee, a group representing European manufacturers.
Taiwan and Malaysia last year had a combined 13.7 percent share of the EU market for polyester staple fibers, according to the Brussels-based group, which filed a March 3 dumping complaint that prompted the commission probe.
The EU already imposes anti-dumping duties on polyester staple fibers from India, China, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Australia, Indonesia, Thailand and South Korea to aid European manufacturers.
The European industry's sales fell 6 percent in 2003 compared with 2000 and its market share dropped to 29 percent from 31 percent over the period, the EU said last year. The EU had imposed anti-dumping duties on polyester staple fibers from Taiwan until March last year, when the bloc scrapped the measures after finding that dumping by Taiwanese exporters had become too low to justify the trade protection.
Under EU rules, the commission can impose provisional anti-dumping duties for six months and the bloc's national governments can turn those measures into "definitive" five-year levies.
The commission gave interested parties 40 days to make their views known and has as long as nine months to decide on provisional duties against Taiwan and Malaysia.
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