The US Department of Commerce on Tuesday said that it had opened investigations into vehicle tire imports from Taiwan, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam to determine whether they were being sold below fair value.
The department said it was also investigating whether tire producers in Vietnam were receiving unfair subsidies for passenger vehicle and light truck (PVLT) tires.
The investigations were in response to petitions filed last month by the United Steelworkers (USW) representing workers at US tire plants.
SHRINKING MARKET
“Even though demand for PVLT tires increased, domestic producers were still forced to grapple with reduced market share, falling profits and lost jobs,” USW International president Tom Conway said earlier.
The US imported almost US$4 billion in tires from the four nations, including nearly US$2 billion from Thailand and US$1.2 billion from South Korea last year.
The USW said tire imports from the four countries have risen nearly 20 percent since 2017, reaching 85.3 million tires.
The department said the alleged dumping margins range from 21 percent to 116 percent for Taiwan; 43 percent to 195 percent for South Korea; 106 percent to 217.5 percent for Thailand; and 5 percent to 22 percent for Vietnam.
The USW represents workers at Michelin Group, Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co, Cooper Tire & Rubber Co, Sumitomo Corp and Yokohama Rubber Co plants in Ohio, Arkansas, North Carolina, Kansas, Indiana, Virginia New York and Alabama.
‘ROBUST GROWTH’
This month, Hankook Tires Co urged the department not to investigate, saying the US domestic tire industry “is in robust health and growing.”
It said in a filing that domestic vehicle tire producers “as a whole have not been materially injured and are not threatened with material injury by reason of subject imports.”
The Vietnamese Ministry of Industry and Trade told the department that its economy is “heavily dependent on light vehicles and passenger cars for transportation, logistics and travel and the PVLT tire industry is crucial for our continued economic advancement.”
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves hit a record high at the end of last month, surpassing the US$600 billion mark for the first time, the central bank said yesterday. Last month, the country’s foreign exchange reserves rose US$5.51 billion from a month earlier to reach US$602.94 billion due to an increase in returns from the central bank’s portfolio management, the movement of other foreign currencies in the portfolio against the US dollar and the bank’s efforts to smooth the volatility of the New Taiwan dollar. Department of Foreign Exchange Director-General Eugene Tsai (蔡炯民)said a rate cut cycle launched by the US Federal Reserve
Handset camera lens maker Largan Precision Co (大立光) on Sunday reported a 6.71 percent year-on-year decline in revenue for the third quarter, despite revenue last month hitting the highest level in 11 months. Third-quarter revenue was NT$17.68 billion (US$581.2 million), compared with NT$18.95 billion a year earlier, the company said in a statement. The figure was in line with Yuanta Securities Investment Consulting Co’s (元大投顧) forecast of NT$17.9 billion, but missed the market consensus estimate of NT$18.97 billion. The third-quarter revenue was a 51.44 percent increase from NT$11.67 billion in the second quarter, as the quarter is usually the peak
Nvidia Corp’s major server production partner Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) reported 10.99 percent year-on-year growth in quarterly sales, signaling healthy demand for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure. Revenue totaled NT$2.06 trillion (US$67.72 billion) in the last quarter, in line with analysts’ projections, a company statement said. On a quarterly basis, revenue was up 14.47 percent. Hon Hai’s businesses cover four primary product segments: cloud and networking, smart consumer electronics, computing, and components and other products. Last quarter, “cloud and networking products delivered strong growth, components and other products demonstrated significant growth, while smart consumer electronics and computing products slightly declined,” compared with the
The US government on Wednesday sanctioned more than two dozen companies in China, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, including offshoots of a US chip firm, accusing the businesses of providing illicit support to Iran’s military or proxies. The US Department of Commerce included two subsidiaries of US-based chip distributor Arrow Electronics Inc (艾睿電子) on its so-called entity list published on the federal register for facilitating purchases by Iran’s proxies of US tech. Arrow spokesman John Hourigan said that the subsidiaries have been operating in full compliance with US export control regulations and his company is discussing with the US Bureau of
RSS