Appleton Coated LLC, NewPage Corporation, and Sappi Fine Paper North America – together with the United Steelworkers (USW) welcomed the Department of Commerce's announcement of final antidumping and countervailing duty margins on coated paper imports from China and Indonesia.
The recent announcement of final antidumping and countervailing duty margins sets out the tariffs that will be applied to unfairly traded imports of coated paper from China and Indonesia that benefited from subsidies or were dumped in the U.S. market. The Department of Commerce's action updates the preliminary margins that were announced earlier in the consideration of the case which was filed jointly by the USW and the three companies.
The companies and the USW filed unfair trade cases on September 23, 2009 with the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) and the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) alleging that certain coated paper from China and Indonesia had been dumped and subsidized resulting in injury to the domestic industry and its employees. The paper products covered by the petitions include coated paper in sheet form used in high-quality writing, printing and other graphic applications, with a GE brightness rating of 80 or higher and weighing up to 340 grams per square meter.
The antidumping margins announced by DOC on imports from Indonesia were 20.13 percent and ranged from 7.6-135.83 percent on imports from China. Countervailing duties on products from Indonesia will be subject to tariffs of 17.94 percent and on Chinese imports range from 17.64-178.03 percent. If the ITC votes affirmatively in their upcoming injury determination, these rates will apply for the term of the relief. The ITC will vote on October 19 and the transmittal of its views to DOC will occur on November 4.
"Today's announcement validates the allegations the industry made almost a year ago as to how Chinese and Indonesian coated paper exporters were engaged in unfair trade practices. Correction of the dumping and subsidization by the imposition of duties to offset the margins announced today will help provide some more certainty that a competitive market will exist in these products," said Sandra Van Ert, president and chief executive officer of Appleton Coated LLC.
