The European Commission Published Its Formal Decision

On 23 March the European Commission published its formal decision to terminate the anti dumping investigation concerning imports of certain stainless steel fasteners originating in India. In February the EU applied preliminary anti subsidy countervailing duties on imports of certain stainless fasteners at rates ranging from 3.2% to 16.5%. However it did not make an announcement in the antidumping case and it subsequently became clear that interested parties in the case had been informed that the Commission was minded to terminate anti dumping proceedings. Comments from interested parties were invited and were taken into account in the Commission’s final decision to terminate proceedings. The antidumping investigation clearly identified injury to EU producers of stainless steel fasteners as a result of low cost imports from India and in particular from Viraj Profiles, which accounted for 87% of the volume of product exported to the EU during the investigation period. The Commission’s statistics demonstrate that despite EU consumption of stainless fasteners increasing by 9% between 2008 and the investigation period, the sales volume and market share of EU producers fell by 14% and 21% respectively. At the same time imports from India increased “significantly” by 65%. The Commission also concluded that the EU stainless fastener industry downsized with employment falling by 24% between 2008 and the IP. Profitability of the EU industry was described as negative throughout the period under consideration, and although improving during 2010 remained negative that year. However, the investigation found no evidence that Viraj had been dumping product, although it did determine that other Indian exporters had done so. The normal value established for Viraj was lower than for any other sampled Indian producer but the Commission attributes this to the vertical integration of the Group, which means it produces its own wire rod and benefits from economies of scale. Other Indian producers buy wire rod on the open market. The normal value for other exporters including those deemed to be dumping was based on comparison with domestic selling prices. However, the Commission says Viraj sold only unrepresentative quantities of product domestically during the IP and there is only limited competition on the Indian domestic market. The Commission calculated that only 13% of Indian exports of the products covered by the investigation were at dumped prices, equating to a share of the EU market of just 2%. The Commission did find that imports from India were “constantly undercutting theprices charged by the Union industry on the Union market”. However, the Commission concluded, since the largest Indian exporting producer, represented 87 % of Indian exports to the EU, did not export stainless fasteners at dumped prices it was not possible to establish the required causal link between dumped imports and injury to the Union industry. Essentially the volume of imports deemed to have been dumped was too small to have been responsible for the injury. Source:chinafastener.com