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Trade and Industry Department The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region
Brand Hong Kong - Asia world city
MY COLOUR

Commercial Information Circulars

24-hour hotline : 23 922 922

e-mail address : enquiry@tid.gov.hk

Ref : EIC 111/3/10/1

31 August 2010

Dear Sirs,

Commercial Information Circular No. 389/2010

US : New Proposals to Strengthen Enforcement against Illegal Import Practices from Non-market Economies

The US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke announced on 26 August 2010, in support of the US President Obama's National Export Initiative (NEI), 14 proposed measures. These proposed measures especially focused on illegal import practices from non-market economies (NMEs). The relevant press release is available at http://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2010/08/26/obama-administration-strengthens-enforcement-us-trade-laws-support-pr.

DETAILS

  1. Based on the review by the International Trade Administration (ITA) of the Department of Commerce (DoC) on how to improve the effectiveness of its existing enforcement tools through administrative and regulatory changes, the DoC has developed a list of 14 proposals that will help strengthen the administration of the antidumping (AD) and countervailing duty (CVD) laws of the US. The process for introducing these proposed changes will take place later this year after a transparent review of these proposals and public comment through a comprehensive stakeholder process in the coming months. The 14 proposals are listed below.

  • Expanded use of random sampling to select companies as individual respondents in AD investigations and reviews rather than choosing the largest exporters; 
     

  • Strengthening the current practice regarding the issuance of company-specific AD rates in NME cases; 
     

  • Clarification of the current NME practice that when the DoC uses import prices for valuing a production factor, such prices should include all applicable freight and handling costs; 
     

  • Clarification of the current NME practice to require companies to report production inputs for all products produced at each of their facilities - not just those facilities that produced merchandise destined for the US - for use in the DoC's NME dumping calculations; 
     

  • Clarification of the current CVD practice to reiterate that DoC considers state-owned enterprises (SOEs) as constituting a "specific" group when they are alleged to be receiving countervailable subsidies from the government; 
     

  • Reconsidering the treatment of export taxes and value-added taxes (VAT) in DoC's NME AD methodology;  
     

  • Strengthening the treatment of resellers and other non-reviewed parties in NME cases to ensure that such parties pay the full amount of AD duties; 
     

  • Adoption of a new methodology for valuing wage (labour) rates in NME cases by using surrogate wage rates that fully capture all labour costs (including benefits and taxes paid to workers by their employers) in the NME country; 
     

  • Eliminating the practice of allowing individual companies to seek removal from an AD or CVD order based on their ability to show zero dumping margins or subsidy rates for three AD or five CVD consecutive years; 
     

  • Tightening the rules in NME cases for determining when the price of production inputs purchased from market economy countries will be substituted for the DoC's standard valuation for such inputs; 
     

  • Considering whether importers will be required to post cash deposits rather than bonds for imports that fall within the scope of an AD/CVD investigation starting with the issuance of Commerce's preliminary determination (rather than following the imposition of an AD/CVD order); 
     

  • Strengthening the certification process for the submission of factual information to the Department; 
     

  • Strengthening the accountability of attorneys and non-attorneys practicing before DoC; and 
     

  • Tightening the deadlines for submitting new factual information in AD/CVD cases.

ENQUIRIES

  1. For enquiries concerning this circular, please contact the undersigned at telephone number 2398 5682.

Yours faithfully,




(Miss Carmen CHAN)

for Director-General of Trade and Industry