Anti-dumping duties slapped on Polish and Russian steel
JAKARTA (JP): The government has slapped antidumping duties of 62 percent and 8.2 percent respectively on construction steel H section and I section imported from Russia and Poland.
The antidumping duty imposed on imports of steel products from Russia and Poland was stipulated in Finance Minister's Decree No. 188/KMK.01/1999, issued on May 31.
According to the decree, the duties will be effective for five years starting Jan. 18, 1999. They are open for review after 12 months of implementation.
The antidumping ruling was prompted by a request from local steel-maker PT Gunung Garuda, which complained that competitors from the two countries sold their products in Indonesia at unfair market prices.
To follow up the complaints, the government imposed temporary countervailing duties on Jan. 18 against construction steel H section and I section imported from the two countries.
The duties were effective until the Indonesia Antidumping Committee completed an investigation into the matter.
The imposition of the temporary antidumping duties were to prevent further losses to domestic industry during the investigation period.
The committee's investigations uncovered convincing evidence the two countries dumped construction steel here, causing severe losses to the domestic industry.
Last month, the government imposed antidumping duties ranging from between 4 percent to 68 percent on tin plates imported from Australia, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
The measure was prompted by a request from PT Pelat Timah Nusantara (Latinusa), the only local tin plate manufacturer, which accused its competitors of selling their tin plates at unfair prices.
The measure was objected by the Association of Indonesian Can Producers, which said imposing high import duties was unfair because they protected Latinusa at the expense of other industries.
The high import surcharge would not only hurt can producers, but also related downstream industries, such as canned food and beverage producers, the association said.
U.S dumping
In a similar development, AFP reported on Thursday that a U.S steel industry-union coalition had filed lawsuits against 12 steel-exporting countries, including Indonesia, alleging they violated trade laws by "dumping" low-priced steel imports in the U.S. market.
The complaint, filed with the U.S Commerce Department, seeks the U.S government action against cold-rolled steel imports from Argentina, Brazil, China, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, Slovakia, south Afrika, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey and Venezuela.
The lawsuits seek a U.S. government ruling that the steel- exporting countries conducted illegal activity and that "stiff" duties be charged against future cold-rolled imports shipped from these countries.
U.S steel makers said that their future has been imperiled by a flood of imported steel -- cold-rolled, hot-rolled and stainless -- at unfair dumping prices that were far below cost of production.
They blamed the surge of allegedly illegal steel imports for their weak financial results and the loss of jobs over the past year or so. One of the petitioner, Weirton Steel Corp., said it lost US$41 million during the past three quarters and laid off 425 workers as a result of steel imports.
Cold-rolled imported from the 12 countries amounted to 2.3 million tons last year, a 121 percent increase since 1996. Such imports accounted 63 percent of all cold-rolled imported steel to the U.S. in 1998, capturing 14 percent of the U.S. market, up from an 11.3 percent market share in 1997.
The U.S. steel companies' lawsuits also alleged that Brazil, Indonesia, Thailand and Venezuela subsidize their steel companies that produce cold-rolled products.
The steel companies urged the federal government to fully enforce trade laws and to avoid striking agreements with defendant nations that would suspend the countries from paying duties on certain imports.
The U.S Commerce Department announced in April anti-dumping duties ranging between 17.86 percent to 67.14 percent on hot- rolled steel imported from Japanese companies. (gis)