Indonesia slaps antidumping duty between 4% and 68% in tin plates

JAKARTA (JP): The government has decided to impose anti- dumping duties ranging between four to 68 percent on tin plates imported from Australia, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

The Ministry of Finance set the import surcharge on the imports of tin plates from BHP Steel and other Australian companies at 16.7 percent.

It also imposed a 68 percent import duty on all imports of tin plates from Japanese companies and 41 percent on tin plates imported from Taiwanese companies.

Import duty on tin plates from South Korea's Dong Bu is set at 4 percent, Dong Yang at 6.5 percent and Posco Steel at 4.6 percent. Import duty on other South Korean companies is set at 6.5 percent.

The anti-dumping duty imposed on imports of tin plates from Australia, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan was stipulated in Minister of Finance Decree No. 149/KMK.01/1999, issued on April 30.

According to the decree, the ruling would be effective for five years starting Jan. 18. It could be reviewed after 12 months of implementation.

The anti-dumping ruling was prompted by a request from PT Pelat Timah Nusantara (Latinusa), which complained that competitors from the four countries sold their products in Indonesia at unfair market prices.

Latinusa, the only local tin plate manufacturer, is 95 percent owned by state-owned steel maker PT Krakatau Steel with the remaining 5 percent controlled by Nusamba Foundation, a business group related to former president Soeharto.

To follow up the complaints, the government imposed the temporary countervailing duties on Jan. 18 of up to 68 percent against tin plates imported from the four countries.

The duties were effective until the investigation held by the Indonesia Anti-dumping Commitee (KADI) decided in April whether or not the companies of the four countries were involved in dumping their products here.

KADI said the temporary anti-dumping duties were imposed to prevent further losses during the investigation period.

The drive was objected by the Association of Indonesian Can Producers (APKKI) which said imposing high import duties were 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.

The association's members preferred imported tin plates because Latinusa -- the only tin plate producer in the country -- sold its products not only at a high price but also were a low quality, APKKI said.

The decree states, however, the committee's investigations found positive evidence the four countries dumped their tin plate products here, causing great losses to the domestic industry. (gis)