Brussels, 25/10/2000 (Agence Europe) - The Council of the Union has decided to review upwards the definitive anti-dumping duty on imports of raw non-alloyed magnesium from China.
The new regulation, published in the Official Journal NoL/267, specifies that the Community measures did not have the correcting effect desired because of the low level of sale and resale prices the incriminated companies continued to practice. The anti-absorption review conducted since September 1999 demonstrated (as Euro Alliages, the liaison committee for iron alloy industries claimed, on behalf of the only Community producer known, French Pechiney Electrométallurgie) that most imports concerned were by European operators connected to these companies at prices that were often subject to major discounts. The resale prices, which should have increased by 30% after imposition of anti-dumping duties, thus fell by 0.7% compared to the previously established level, which confirms that the impact of the Community measures were neutralised at least since September 1998. The European Commission re-evaluated export prices after the inquiry and re-calculated the dumping margin, explaining the fact that resale prices were almost frozen by the existence of a compensation arrangement between exporter and importer. The duty fixed corresponds to an amount equal to the difference between the minimum import price and the CAF price Community border if this is less than ECU 2,622 per tonne (minimum export price). In other cases, the ad valorem price increases from 31.7 to 63.4%.