Brussels, 05/01/2004 (Agence Europe) - The EU Council has caused the partial intermediary review of antidumping measures to be applied to imports of urea originating in Russia by deciding not to change the definitive duty in force since May 2001. The procedure, initiated by the European Commission, aimed to verify whether the existing measures (a variable duty based on a minimum import price, or MIP) are sufficient to counter dumping or whether they should be modified in order to cancel the risk of price manipulation revealed by the association of Community producers.
The experts consider that this risk is very low given that circumstances are proper to each case. They note that, over the long period, import prices have generally been higher than MIP. The Council therefore sees no reason to modify the form of measures applying to imports of urea from Russia. It nonetheless recognises that, if the market situation for urea should change, then the Commission would take appropriate measures and that it would grant, for now, special attention to import prices of urea from Russia. The attention of customs authorities is drawn to this problem, it is specified in the regulation in the Official Journal L339.