US fibre producers file trade petition against 5 nations

The three petitioning domestic producers have asked the US government to investigate the dumping, subsidies, and injury and to impose anti-dumping and countervailing duties on the imports of fine denier PSF from the subject countries.

The petitions allege that producers in each of the five countries are dumping fine denier PSF in the U.S. market at sizeable margins. China's dumping margin is alleged to be 88.07-103.06 per cent, while that of India is 21.31-29.70 per cent.

The petitions also allege that the Chinese fine denier PSF industry benefits from 20 different Chinese government subsidies, and that the Indian fine denier PSF industry benefits from 33 Indian government subsidies. The allegations identify a number of significant national and regional programs, including preferential export financing, preferential income tax treatment, tax exemptions, rebates and credits on imports of inputs and capital goods used in the production of fine denier PSF and grants for fine denier PSF producers to assist in the development of export market and to protect against commercial risk.

The petitions were filed concurrently with the US department of commerce and the US International Trade Commission (USITC). The filing is in response to surging volumes of aggressively-priced fine denier PSF imports from China, India, Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Subject import volume increased from 150.3 million pounds in 2014 to 252.5 million pounds in 2016, or by nearly 68 per cent over the three-year period. The subject imports undersold the domestic industry, taking sales from and exerting considerable downward pricing pressure on US producers.

As a result of increasing volumes of low-priced imports, the condition of the domestic industry has suffered. US producers have experienced declining production and shipment volumes and deteriorating financial performance as a result of the lost sales and price depression caused by the subject imports. Foreign producers of fine denier PSF also continue to threaten the domestic industry with additional injury due to their massive and growing production capacity and extensive unused capacity that will be used to export large volumes of unfairly low-priced and subsidised product to the US. The injury to the domestic fine denier PSF industry is likely to continue if duties are not imposed to offset these unfair trading practices.

"The substantial increase in unfairly-traded fine denier PSF from the five subject countries has harmed US manufacturers and their workers," said Paul Rosenthal of Kelley Drye & Warren LLP, counsel for the petitioning companies. "Trade relief is essential to ensuring that the domestic industry can recover from its injured and vulnerable state, thrive and fairly compete." (KD)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk – India