The European Commission (EC) has announced that it has revised the definitive antidumping (AD) duty regulation on certain castings from China, which was imposed on December 22, 1995.
By the regulation in question, the EU imposed definitive AD duties on imports of certain castings originating in China. Individual duty rates ranged from zero percent to 37.9 percent, and the residual duty level was set at 47.8 percent. In view of several new requests from exporting producers, the regulation was amended from time to time, most recently in April 2009.
The product concerned is castings of non-malleable cast iron of a kind used to cover and/or give access to ground or subsurface systems, and parts thereof, whether or not machined, coated or painted or fitted with other materials, excluding fire hydrants, originating in China and falling within CN codes 7325 10 50, 7325 10 92 and ex 7325 10 99 (TARIC code 7325 10 99 10).
On November 8, 2007, the EC received a request for an interim review, lodged by Eurofonte, acting on behalf of nine European producers, alleging that there was a lack of clarity as to the scope of the definitive duty regulation in question. According to Eurofonte, the product scope should be clarified as far as castings of ductile iron are concerned and in particular whether this kind of castings should fall within the definition of the product concerned.
Having determined that sufficient evidence existed for the initiation of a partial interim review, the EC initiated the investigation, limited in scope to the definition of the product subject to the duty in force.
In view of its findings, EC has determined to revise the regulation in order to clarify the scope of the product covered by that regulation and to insert that the product scope covers castings of non-malleable cast iron and of spheroidal graphite cast iron (ductile iron). Moreover, an additional CN Code should be included, i.e. CN Code ex 7325 99 10.
Therefore, the article of the regulation to describe the product subject to the duty is revised as follows:
A definitive antidumping duty is hereby imposed on imports of castings of non-malleable cast iron and spheroidal graphite cast iron (ductile iron) of a kind used to cover and/or to give access to ground or subsurface systems, and parts thereof, whether or not machined, coated or painted or fitted with other materials, excluding fire hydrants, originating in China, currently classifiable within CN codes 7325 10 50, 7325 10 92, ex 7325 10 99 (TARIC code 7325 10 99 10), and ex 7325 99 10 (TARIC code 7325 99 10 10).