China’s Anti-dumping Investigation
The Chinese government initiated an anti-dumping investigation regarding polyacetal produced by South Korean companies such as LG Chem, KOLON Plastics and Korea Engineering Plastics.
The Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) announced on November 7 that the Ministry of Commerce of China recently launched the investigation and it is likely to continue until October 2017.
The probe was requested by Chinese companies in September this year. At that time, they claimed that the price of polyacetal imported from South Korea was lower than a normal price and the local industry as well as themselves was being negatively affected. They also mentioned that the South Korean companies were recording a dumping margin of as high as 58.9%.
In the first half of this year, South Korea exported polyacetal worth US$26,600 in total to China and took up the largest portion of the local market. According to the FTA between South Korea and China, the tariff applied to it is scheduled to be reduced from 6.5% to 5.2% next year.