Taiwan Retail Bags: Commerce Preliminarily Finds Circumvention of Duties, Suspends Liquidation
The Commerce Department preliminarily found that exporters of polyethylene retail carrier bags (PRCBs) from Taiwan (A-583-843) are circumventing antidumping duties on the product. The agency is suspending liquidation and requiring AD duty cash deposits on these unfinished PRCBs from Taiwan entered on or after July 31, 2013. The bags, which are being imported from Taiwan into the U.S., only need their handles die cut and their bottoms sealed to become finished PRCB that would be subject to duties. Commerce began an anticircumvention inquiry in 2013 after domestic alleged that the conversion process required to finish the bags is so minor and insignificant that Commerce should find the unfinished bags subject to the order.
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The unfinished bags being imported from Taiwan are coming in as rolls of unfinished bags. Their surface is printed, and they have oval handles that have not yet been die cut. The sides have been sealed, but not the bottoms. According to the domestic industry, the “conversion” process usually includes sealing the sides and bottom, as well as die cutting the handles, in the same step. The only reason a manufacturer wouldn’t do this is to evade imposition of AD duties, domestic industry had said. Commerce’s final determination is currently due in November.
(Federal Register 06/02/14)