The Ministry of Finance is extending its anti-dumping tariffs on toweling products from China for five years, as exporters continue to sell their goods at unfairly low prices in Taiwan, harming the local industry, it said last week.
The Customs Administration extended the anti-dumping tariffs of 29.72 percent on bath towels, pillow covers, napkins, tablecloths, footpads and semi-finished products sold by Chinese exporters, the ministry said in a statement on Friday.
The extension of the punitive tariffs, which were in effect from Dec. 21, 2017, to Dec. 20, 2022, started on Friday last week and are to run through Dec. 28, 2028, the agency said.
Photo: Liao Shu-ling, Taipei Times
The decision to extend the tariffs came after the ministry completed a third sunset investigation into the trading practices of Chinese exporters of toweling products, it said.
It and the Ministry of Economic Affairs agree the materially adverse effects that Chinese towel exporters’ unfair practices have had on Taiwan’s towel industry has not ended.
There is no evidence that the continued anti-dumping tariffs would have a negative effect on Taiwan’s economy, the Ministry of Finance said.
It imposed anti-dumping tariffs on China-made toweling products for the first time in June 1, 2006, with the tariff set at 204.1 percent for five years.
After its first sunset investigation in 2011, the ministry extended the tariff for another five years to Dec. 19, 2016.
Following the second sunset probe, it reinstated the tariff again for five years, but reduced it to 29.72 percent.
Over the 10 years to the end of November last year, Taiwan collected more than NT$103 million (US$3.34 million) in anti-dumping taxes from Chinese towel exporters, finance ministry data showed.
However, the tariff failed to reduce imports of toweling products from China over the past five years.
In the first 11 months of last year, imports of toweling product from China topped NT$21 million, up from about NT$6 million in 2019, the data showed.
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