Taiwan Launches Provisional Antidumping Duties Against Stainless Steel from China and South Korea

According to the dumping investigation on stainless steel products from China and South Korea, the related industries of Taiwan have been proved to suffer material injury caused by these products. Accordingly, Customs Administration of Ministry of Finance of Taiwan announced that after 8/15, related companies from China and South Korea would face an antidumping rate up to 46.02% for the first time. Officers from the Administration will be assigned to China and South Korea for field investigation. The final determination if a 5-year antidumping measure is going to be launched will be officially made in mid-October at the earliest.

Yieh United Steel and Tang Eng Iron Works filed a complaint to the dumping of stainless steel cold rolled products from China and South Korea previously and asked the government should levy both provisional and final antidumping duties against these companies. This February, Ministry of Finance of Taiwan determined that the complaint had provided sufficient evidences, which proved the existence of injury to the industries of Taiwan, so the investigation was launched. According to the data submitted by local Taiwanese companies, the highest dumping margin reached 23.08% calculated from 2011 to the first half of 2012.

Reviewing the market prices of these products in China and South Korea, the Ministry preliminarily determined that the dumping existed and did caused material injury to the domestic industries of Taiwan. In order to protect the benefits of domestic industries, the provisional antidumping duties will be levied for 4 months on related companies in China and South Korea. One officer of the Ministry of Finance pointed out that stainless steel products exported from China to Taiwan during January 2013 to May 2013 represented 50.4% of the total stainless steel cold rolled products import of Taiwan, while South Korea also represented 25.6%, both showing sufficient evidences of causing material injury to Taiwan.

As the dumping margins for China and South Korea are different, the applicable duties will be, of course, different. TISCO, TPCO, and its affiliated companies in China will face a tax rate of 20.52% and 45.96% for other Chinese companies. In South Korea, POSCO and other 8 companies will face a tax rate of 27.26% and 46.02% for other Korean companies. For the rest of related companies, they will face a tax rate of 46.02%.