European Union threatens to impose tariffs against PET from Saudi Arabia and Oman

18-Feb-11

The European Union (EU) has threatened to impose tariffs against PET from Saudi Arabia and Oman, saying EU producers may be victims of subsidies and price undercutting, as per Bloomberg. The EU opened probes into whether Saudi and Omani makers of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) get trade-distorting government aid and sell in the Euro 3 bln (US$4.1 bln) European market below cost, a practice known as dumping. The inquiries will determine whether EU producers of PET have suffered “injury” as a result of any unfair Saudi and Omani competition, the European Commission, the 27 nation EU’s trade authority in Brussels, said today in the Official Journa In 2010, the EU imposed anti-subsidy tariffs on PET from Iran, Pakistan and the UAE for five years and renewed PET anti-dumping levies against China until late 2015 to curb import competition for European producers including Spain’s Novapet. In 2007, the bloc re-imposed for five years anti-dumping duties on PET from India, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea, Thailand and Taiwan as well as separate anti-subsidy levies against India. Under EU rules, the commission can impose provisional anti- subsidy duties for 4 months and provisional anti-dumping levies for 6 months. The EU’s national governments - acting on a commission proposal - can turn those measures into “definitive” five-year duties at the same or different rates. The commission has 9 months from the start of an investigation to decide on provisional measures. EU governments have 13 months from the beginning of a probe to impose five-year anti-subsidy - or “countervailing” - duties and 15 months to impose definitive anti-dumping measures.