The Hindu Business Line : Dumping probe into phosphoric acid initiated

New Delhi, Nov. 16 The Designated Authority in the Commerce Ministry has set off anti-dumping investigation into imported phosphoric acid of all grades and concentration (excluding agriculture/fertiliser) grade from South Korea, following a joint petition filed by Gujarat Alkalies & Chemicals Ltd, Baroda, and Solaris Chemtach Ltd, Karwar.

In an initiation notification, the authority said the product under probe is an inorganic chemical used for the production of sodium phosphate, calcium phosphate, magnesium phosphate, ammonium phosphate.

The subject goods find wide applications in pharmaceutical, beverages, seed processing, sugar juice clarification and sugar refining and food phosphate manufacturing.

As the applicants have claimed that the product is not sold at retail level in South Korea, they have not been able to get any information or evidence of price of subject goods in the domestic market of that country. The applicants, therefore, claimed normal value based on costs of production of the domestic industry including reasonable profit margin.

Export prices

The export prices have been claimed on the basis of data gleaned from International Business Information System, Mumbai, and price adjustments have been claimed due to ocean freight, marine insurance, inland transportation, port handling and port charges to arrive at the net export price. The authority contends that there is sufficient evidence that the normal values of the subject goods in South Korea are significantly higher than the net export prices, indicating that the subject goods are being dumped by exporters from South Korea.

The authority said the applicants have marshalled evidence concerning the injury having supervened as a result of the alleged dumping in the form of increased volume of dumped imports, price undercutting, and substantial decline in performance of the domestic industry.

The period of investigation is from April 1, 2007, to end-March 2008 and the injury investigation period would cover 2004-05, 2005-06, 2006-07 and the period of investigation, the authority said.

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