KL probes anti-dumping

KL probes anti-dumping

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Malaysia launched an anti-dumping probe yesterday concerning imports of "self copy paper" from France, the United Kingdom and Indonesia.

The Ministry of International Trade and Industry said it had received a joint petition from two local firms that these countries were selling the products here at a price much lower than in their domestic markets.

Self copy paper allows writing to be copied between two sheets without the use of carbon paper.

"The petitioners had provided evidence that imports from the alleged countries had increased significantly in terms of quantity and market share," the ministry said in a statement.

The companies also claimed they were forced to lower their prices to compete with these imports, and their profitability had been affected.

"The government, having determined there is sufficient evidence of dumping... has decided to commence investigations," the ministry said.

A preliminary decision would be made in 90 days whether there would be a need to impose "anti-dumping duty at a level that would eliminate the dumping", it said.

According to the ministry, the government could also backdate the imposition of the duty to the date of the probe if it found there was a sudden surge in imports of the product in lieu of the imposition of the duty.

Malaysia is expected to register a trade deficit of 7.144 billion ringgit (US$2.8 billion) in 1996, a fall of nearly two billion ringgit compared with last year, a government report said last week.

Exports were expected to reach 219.727 billion ringgit against imports of 226.871 billion ringgit.