Antidumping duties planned for flour
Antidumping duties planned for flour
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Minister of Industry and Trade Rini Soewandi unveiled on
Monday plans to impose antidumping duties on imported wheat flour
from Australia, the European Union (EU) and United Arab Emirates
(UAE).
"After considering input from several parties, we plan to
impose antidumping duties on the commodity amounting to 20
percent of the recommendation by the Indonesian Antidumping
Committee (KADI)," Rini told legislators during a meeting with
House of Representatives Commission V for trade and industry.
Late last year, KADI proposed antidumping duties of between 5
percent to 35 percent on wheat flour imported from those
countries, compared to zero percent at present.
The proposal, however, was rejected by Rini in December 2001
due to high demand at home amid end-of-year festivities.
Rini said that the planned antidumping duties on imported
flour from the EU would be between 4 percent and 7 percent,
compared with KADI's recommendation of 21 percent to 35 percent.
Antidumping duties on flour from Australia are proposed at
between 1 percent and 6 percent, while duties on flour from UAE
at between 2 percent and 6 percent.
The plan will be presented to Minister of Finance Boediono for
approval.
Both legislators and the Indonesian Wheat and Flour Producers
Association (Aptindo) have repeatedly called on the government to
impose antidumping duties to protect local flour mills.
There are four flour mills in the country, namely PT Bogasari
Flour Mills, PT Sriboga Ratu Raya, PT Pangan Mas and PT
Berdikari.
The giant Bogasari, which is a unit of publicly listed food
manufacturer PT Indofood Sukses Makmur, has been the most
aggressive in complaining about the dumping practices of the
overseas flour producers.
It claimed its market share at home had decreased to 70
percent last year from almost 90 percent in previous years.
The company warned that any delay in imposing antidumping
duties would encourage other overseas flour producers, especially
from India and China, to flood the local market and as such
further hurt local mills.