Anti-dumping Duty
The US government finally decided to impose an up to 44.3 percent anti-dumping duty on Korean synthetic rubber.
The US Department of Commerce announced the final positive dumping decision in a July 11 statement, saying that Kumho Petrochemical Korea, POSCO Daewoo (former Daewoo International) and LG Chem are selling emulsion styrene-butadiene (ESB) rubber, which is a kind of synthetic rubber, at unfair prices in the US market.
As a result, US authorities decided to impose an anti-dumping duty of 44.30% on products of Kumho Petrochemical and POSCO Daewoo, and 9.66% on those of LG Chem and other Korean companies producing and exporting ESB rubber.
According to the US International Trade Administration (ITA), relatively high tariffs were levied on POSCO Daewoo and Kumho Petrochemical as the two did not respond to a survey by the US.
In addition, rubber producers in Brazil, Mexico and Poland also received 19.61%, 19.52% and 25.43% of anti-dumping duties, respectively.
The antidumping tariff rate on Korean products is the highest but it is forecast that the impact will be minimal. This is because as of last year, Korean exports of ESB rubber to the US was only US$ 503,000 which was much lower than those of Brazil (US$ 29.9 million), Mexico (US$ 23.1 million) and Poland (US$ 3.4 million), respectively.
The US International Trade Commission (ITC) is expected to issue the final ruling on the damage to its industry by August 24 and the US Commerce Department is expected to give the final anti-dumping duty order on August 30.