Dumping charges on textiles groundless
JAKARTA (JP): Dumping charges launched by European countries on Indonesian textile producers are groundless and are a means of protectionism, an official of the Indonesian Textile Association (API) said yesterday.
"Dumping charges from importing countries are often harassment of their trade relationship with exporting countries," API's Deputy Chairman Chamroel Djafri told The Jakarta Post.
Commenting on a report that the European Commission began dumping inquiries on Monday into the European Union's (EU) polyester yarn imports from Thailand, Indonesia and India, Chamroel said that importing countries often complain to exporting countries without reason just to harass them.
The commission's action, detailed in the EU's Official Journal, followed a complaint by the Comite International de la Rayonne et des Fibers Synthetiques (CIRFS) on behalf of certain EU producers of polyester filament yarns.
Chamroel said when the EU declares dumping charges on foreign textile producers, its importers will automatically halt buying products from those countries because they do not to pay anti- dumping duties set by their governments. Such duties, therefore, will cause decline in imports from those countries.
Acceptance
He said dumping charges will be accepted by the European Commission if they are filed by no less than 40 percent of the EU's member countries and if the charged imports account for more than one percent of the charging countries' total imports of certain products.
He said sanctions will only be applied to a country which sells a product to an EU member at prices higher than the country's domestic price or higher than the price of the same product sold to other countries.
He said all that Indonesia can do now is wait for the result of the investigation by the European Commission. "We will then hire a lawyer to defend us at the European Commission forum," Chamroel said.
If Indonesia is not proven to have dumped, the European Commission will then have to recommend the cancellation of the charges, he said.
"If the council of ministers of the EU countries declaring the charges insist on continuing the investigation, we can appeal to the Court of Justice in the European Union," he said.
Chamroel said Indonesia has asked the European Commission to review the charges because during their investigation, there was only one Indonesian firm which did not respond to questionnaires from the European Commission. (02/yns)