EU scraps anti-dumping duty on Taiwan's textile makers

Taipei, March 23, 2005 (CENS)--European Union (EU) has scrapped anti-dumping duty on Taiwan's polyester filament yarn makers, effective five days ago.

The Bureau of Foreign Trade (BOFT) under the Ministry of Economic Affairs noted that EU had imposed anti-dumping tariffs on polyester filament yarns imported from Taiwan for about 16 years since December 1988. During the period, EU reviewed the anti-dumping policy on Taiwan's textile makers twice, one in October 1992 and another in July 1999, yet it still decided to maintain the tariff rates at 5.1% to 15.8%.

BOFT emphasized that EU's recent move to drop the anti-dumping tariffs on imports of polyester filament yarns from Taiwan is an extremely good news to Taiwan's textile makers, particularly when such tariffs remain applicable to manufacturers in S. Korea and mainland China, Taiwan's two major textile rivals. S. Korea is subject to anti-dumping tariff rates of 5.7%-10.6%, and the mainland 4.9%-49.7%.

Last year, Taiwan recorded US$90 million in exports of polyester filament yarns to EU, which accounted for merely 0.38% of the island's total export trade. BOFT believed that EU's decision of canceling anti-dumping tax on only Taiwan's textile makers would greatly help Taiwan's textile makers boost competitiveness in EU.