China imposes anti-dumping tariffs on Taiwan's nylon filament makers

Taipei, Sept. 7, 2004 (CENS)--The Ministry of Commerce (MOC) of mainland China has preliminarily ruled to impose different anti-dumping tariff rates on Taiwan's makers of nylon 6 & nylon 66 filament and texture imported into the mainland.

Initially, MOC is going to levy anti-dumping tax of 5%-7% on such Taiwanese textile makers as Formosa Chemical & Fiber Corp., DuPont Far East, Zig Sheng Industrial Co., Hualong Corp., and Chain Yarn Co. Moreover, it will impose a double-digit anti-dumping tax rates of 13% on Acelon Chemicals & Fiber Corp. and 16% on Li Peng Enterprise Co. As for those that are not willing to cooperate with MOC, they will be subject to a punitive tariff rate of up to 29%. However, Chung Shing Textile Co. is the only Taiwan's textile manufacturer exempt from such a tax.

Taiwan's nylon filament makers said their mainland Chinese counterparts will have their expanded production lines running next year, forcing MOC to take actions to curb imports from Taiwan and safeguard the output expansion of nylon filament makers in the mainland.

The MOC move, however, pushed up the prices of nylon filament in the mainland market, and boosted the material cost of down-stream cloth manufacturers. Insiders believed such a development will be conducive to Taiwan's exports of nylon chips and related nylon cloths.

Some Taiwan's nylon filament makers are not worried about the dumping charge, because they believed that both the quality and prices of Taiwan-made nylon chips exported to the mainland are higher than those offered by mainland makers, which can hardly justify a dumping accusation.

Su Pai-huang, Zig Sheng's general manager, disclosed that Zig Sheng turns out around 3,500 metric tons of nylon filament per month, and its major export market is Japan instead of mainland China, which accounts for merely 5% of the company's total exports. So, the company will not be influenced by the anti-dumping tax imposed by the mainland Chinese authority.

Formosa, with a monthly export volume of 4,000-5,000 metric tons to the mainland, will be subject to a 6% anti-dumping tariff rate, and the company is determined to further negotiate with MOC before the final ruling, which is slated for the end of this year at the earliest.

Ke Cheng-hsing, spokesman of Li Peng, pointed out that the company was unfairly levied a high anti-dumping tariff rate of 16% during the initial verdict. As there is room for appeal before the final verdict, the company will surely appeal against the unfair ruling as soon as possible.

According to customs statistics, from July 2002 to June 2003 Taiwan's exports of nylon textile materials to the mainland totaled US$212 million, accounting for 69% of Taiwan's total exports of such products to the world. And such exports for July 2003 to June 2004 jumped by 37.1% to US$291 million, with export ratio up to 74.9%.


Taiwan's Bureau of Foreign Trade (BOFT) said that the nylon textile materials under MOC's investigation can be woven into cloths mainly for making bed sheets, swimming suits, sports clothes, petticoats, socks, and mosquito nets.