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EU may remove tariffs on blank CDs

The EU may remove tariffs of as high as 38.5 percent on blank compact discs from Taiwan and India in a fresh show of support for EU buyers of Asian consumer electronics over higher-cost European producers.

The European Commission said it would review the need for the duties five months after the EU dropped a threat to introduce levies against Chinese and Malaysian exporters of the products. The tariffs punish Taiwan's exporters for selling recordable CDs in Europe below domestic prices or below the production cost, a practice commonly known as "dumping," and India's exporters for receiving subsidies.

"It is appropriate to review the need for the continued imposition of the existing measures," the commission, the 27-nation EU's trade authority in Brussels, said on Thursday in the Official Journal. The commission's review will last as long as 15 months.

The EU is heeding the interests of European buyers of recordable CDs and blank digital versatile discs (DVDs) after import levies failed to bolster European producers, including France's Manufacturing Advanced Media Europe SA.

The EU imposed anti-dumping duties of as high as 38.5 percent on blank CDs from Taiwan in June 2002 and anti-subsidy duties of 7.3 percent on the product from India a year later.

The levies are for five years and EU producers can request a prolongation of the measures.
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