The Designated Authority in the Commerce Ministry has recommended imposition of definitive anti-dumping duty on import of glass fibre and articles made out of it from China, following a joint petition filed by domestic manufacturers Owens Corning India Ltd, Mumbai and Reinforcement Manufacturing Ltd, Hyderabad.

Glass fibre articles are essentially a reinforcement material. Such articles are made from extremely fine fibres of glass. The various uses of glass fibre articles include thermal insulation, electrical insulation, tent poles, automobile bodies, hockey sticks, surfboards, boat hulls, translucent roof panels and paper honeycomb.

As a spate of requests for exclusion emanated from various interested (importing) parties by the Authority during the run-up to the probe, it has explicitly stated that for the purpose of investigation, the product under consideration is glass fibre, including glass roving (assembled rovings-AR), direct rovings), direct rovings (DR), glass chopped strands (CS), glass chopped strands mats (CSM).

Specifically excluded from the scope of the product under investigation are glass wool, fibre glass wool, fibre glass insulation in wool form, glass yarn, glass woven fabrics, glass fibre fabric, glass woven rovings and chopped strands purported for thermoplastic applications, micro glass fibres used in batter separator, surface mat/surface veil/tissue.

While recommending imposition of definitive anti-dumping duty equal to the lesser of margin of dumping and margin of injury so as to remove the injury to the domestic industry, the Authority also took due cognisance of a “significant differentiation of the product in terms of prices.”

Percentage of CIF value

Hence it has plumped for imposition of anti-dumping duty as an ad valorem duty, to be worked out as a percentage of the CIF (cost, insurance & freight) value of imports of the subject goods from China.

Accordingly, the Chinese producer/exporter Shandong Taishan-PDO Glass Fibre Products Co Ltd should fork out a definitive anti-dumping duty equal to 20.89 per cent of cif value, while the same producer but exporting through Taishan Fibreglass Inc also should pay a dumping levy equal to the same percentage.

The latter firm exporting the subject goods as producer/exporter should also pay an anti-dumping duty equal to 20.89 per cent of cif value of imports.

In the case of Jushi Group Jiujiang Co Ltd, which, as a producer and exporter, should pay a definitive anti-dumping duty equal to 18.67 per cent of cif value of imports, the other Chinese manufacturer Chongqing Polycomp International Corporation (CPIC) may have to pay a lower definitive anti-dumping duty equal to 7.46 per cent of cif value of imports.

All other manufacturers/exporters from China would have to pay a hefty anti-dumping duty equal to 40.91 per cent of cif value of imports, while exporting glass fibre to India, the Authority held.

>geeyes@thehindu.co.in

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