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US lowers antidumping duties on RI polyethylene bags
The United States’s recent decision to lower temporary antidumping duties on Indonesian polyethylene retail carrier bags from 67
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he United States’s recent decision to lower temporary antidumping duties on Indonesian polyethylene retail carrier bags from 67.18 percent to 9.18 percent mean a new chance for Indonesian producers to re-enter the US plastic bag market.
Indonesian Downstream Plastic Producers Association (Aphindo) chairman Tjokro Gunawan said Sunday he was satisfied with the US’ decision.
“We are happy. The opportunity for [Indonesian] plastic bag producers’ to export [to the US] is now open again,” he told The Jakarta Post.
He said he had not received reports that Aphindo members had stopped exports to the US since the 67.18 percent temporary antidumping duties were imposed last May.
“But with a margin that high [67.18 percent], there is no way someone could export,” said Tjokro.
Antidumping duties are imposed, usually in addition to import duties, to counter dumping, in which an exporter allegedly sells their products in a country at prices below its production costs and/or below it prices in its home market.
Tjokro alleged that the US first imposed high temporary antidumping duties last year because the country was “softly protecting” its domestic market during the global economic crisis as the plastic bag industry was labor-intensive.
“And now as the country is recovering, it has lowered the temporary antidumping duties,” he said.
The Trade Ministry’s director for trade security Ernawati spoke about the latest US decision last week.
She said that last December, the US Dumping Authority had verified Indonesian exporters alleged to have dumped their polyethylene retail carrier bags in the US market.
She said the new revised temporary antidumping duties imposed on Indonesian products were the lowest compared to those imposed on the same product from other countries including Vietnam and Taiwan.
“The US International Trade Commission, which [is authorized to] decide on losses resulting from dumping, asked for clarification [from us] last week,” Ernawati said of the Indonesian government’s first submission.
“We told them that the products we exported were hand-made, not produced by mass-production [by machines],” she added.
She said the Indonesian government would submit its second reply in the near future before the US issued its final antidumping duties scheduled on April 14.
The US began its investigation on 13 Indonesian plastic manufacturers, including CV Dwi Jaya Indah Plastik, Hi-V Plastics Bags Manufacturing, PT Dharma Kritadam, PT Sido Bangun Plastic Industry and PT Randugarut Plastic Indonesia, on April 20, 2009.
The US International Trade Administration announced last year that dumping margins (price differences) for Indonesian products, Vietnamese products and Taiwanese products in the US market had been between 35.47 percent and 60.24 percent, 28.49 percent and 76.11 percent and 76.25 percent and 95.81 percent, respectively.
