The Hindu Business Line : Dumping duty on butadiene rubber mooted

THE Designated Authority in the Commerce Ministry has recommended imposition of provisional anti-dumping duty on import of acrylonitrite butadiene rubber (NBR) from the 25-member European Union (excluding Germany), Mexico and Brazil.

In a notification on its preliminary findings, the Authority said that acrylonitrite (ACN) and butadiene (BD) are two principal raw materials for the production of NBR and prices of both these monomers have risen worldwide. It said that Apar Industries Ltd filed a written petition to the authority, furnishing details of how the goods from the countries mentioned by it are inflicting material injury to the domestic producer.

The Authority said the dumped goods from several sources competing with one another and with domestic production are affecting the domestic market for which cumulative injury analysis has been done. It also highlighted that there is a healthy demand for the subject goods in the domestic market.

After a preliminary probe to assess the extent of dumping and the injury inflicted on the domestic industry, the Authority said that landed values of the materials from the subject countries are significantly lower than the selling price of the domestic industry, causing severe price undercutting in the Indian market. Hence, it recommended imposition of provisional anti-dumping duty on imported subject goods NBR (excluding powder and carboxylated NBR).

In the case of Brazil, export of subject goods from Petroflex, Brazil, the anti-dumping duty is $136.47 per tonne while from Nitroflex, Brazil, it is $215.90 per tonne. For any other exporter from Brazil, the anti-dumping duty would be $220.73 per tonne.

In the case of EU (excluding Germany), the export of the subject goods would attract an anti-dumping duty of $164.57 per tonne, while exports from Mexico would attract $304.37 per tonne.

The Authority said that its examination revealed that the trend of net sales realisation of the domestic industry had declined significantly between 2000-01 and 2002-23 and a marginal rise during the period of investigation (2003-04). This is still significantly below the cost of production indicating the inability of the domestic industry to raise its prices to recover the full cost due to price effects of the dumped imports from the subject countries.

Moreover, the Authority said, the domestic industry has been compelled to benchmark its prices with the landed value from the dumped sources to retain its market share. This meant that dumped imports from the subject countries have marked price suppression and depression effects on the prices of the domestic industry.

Magnitude of dumping as an indicator of the extent to which the dumped imports could injure the domestic industry shows that the dumping margin determined against the countries for the period of investigation ranged from 21 per cent and 27 per cent in the case of two Brazil firms, 26 per cent in the case of exporters from the EU, and 50 per cent in the case of exports from Mexico.

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