China Welcomes ITC Ruling Forcing OTR Anti-Dumping Rethink

The Chinese government has welcomed a US Court of International Trade ruling that the US Department of Commerce imposition of anti-dumping and countervailing duties on Hebei Starbright Tyre Co., Ltd might result in it paying twice. According to the Xinhua news agency, the US court ruled that the Department of Commerce should either scrap the countervailing duty or amend its methodologies and procedures of levying anti-dumping measures and countervailing duty on merchandise from China within 90 days.

The news refers to the fact that, on 31 July 2007 The US Department of Commerce decided that it would launch anti-dumping and countervailing probes simultaneously into China-made off-road tyres. On 4 September 2008 it introduced a 19.15 per cent anti-dumping and a countervailing duty ranging from 2.45 per cent to 14 per cent on the Chinese produced tyres.

The time of the latest ruling, made on the 18 September, is likely to fuel to the Chinese government’s complaints that the US’s recently imposed 35 per cent levy on passenger car tyre imports made in China is unfair.

Xinhua characterised the move as “a breakthrough by China’s companies in opposing protectionism and striving for fair treatment from the United States, according to the statement.”

However, the Hebei Starbright case is interesting because although the factory is clearly based in China, on 11 August 2006 North American industrial and OTR tyre specialist, GPX International Tire Corp. announced it had bought the Hebei Starbright tyre plant.