Certain Chinese-made steel oil and gas well casings will face
double punitive duties in the Canadian market, the Canadian
government has announced.
The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) recently made
preliminary estimates to levy dumping and subsidy tariffs on
certain seamless carbon or alloy steel oil and gas well casings
made in China. It said Chinese products are subsidized by the
government and sold at unfairly low prices in the Canadian
market.
The agency decided punitive tariffs from 15 percent to 78
percent would be collected on certain imports from China.
CBSA began the anti-dumping and countervailing investigations
after Calgary, Canada-based Tenaris Algoma Tubes Inc, filed a
complaint. The company claimed certain imports from China "are
harming Canadian production by causing lost sales, price erosion,
price suppression, lost revenues, reduced profitability, lost
employment, underutilization of capacity and impairment to make
future investments".
China exported some 68,700 tons of certain products, valued at
about $100 million last year, according to Canadian statistics.
Final rulings are expected to be made next year.
Canada was the first country to launch countervailing
investigation into products made in China. It has, so far,
initiated five anti-dumping and countervailing investigations on
Chinese goods since 2004.
"Such frequent countervailing investigations of Chinese products
by the Canadian government is conveying the wrong message to its
industry and other World Trade Organization (WTO) members," the
Chinese Commerce Ministry said when the case was opened.
In addition to the Canadian market, a number of Chinese
products, such as glossy paper and steel piping, have also been
subject to US anti-dumping and countervailing investigations or
tariffs.
China in September filed a complaint against the US dual
investigation against Chinese glossy paper with the WTO.
(China Daily November 20, 2007)
