On May 6, 2022, the Customs Administration, Ministry of Finance of the Republic of China (the “MOF”), published/issued an official notice to initiate an anti-dumping investigation on imports of float glass from Malaysia, Indonesia or Thailand (the “AD Investigation Notice”). The subject goods of the investigation are float glass, in sheets, including both clear float glass and tinted float glass that can be used directly or further processed into glass with the following specifications:
- flat glass manufactured through the float process;
- thickness exceeding 1.1mm, and up to 19mm;
- all widths and lengths; and
- float glass, in sheets, non-wired, not having "an absorbent, reflecting or non- reflecting layer", but not otherwise worked.
Taiwan has become the 144th WTO member under the name of Chinese Taipei since January 1, 2002 and has acceded to the Agreement on Implementation of Article VI of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 1994 that provides “[a]ll interested parties in an anti-dumping investigation shall be given ample opportunity to present in writing all evidence which they consider relevant in respect of the investigation in question”. As per the AD Investigation Notice, those listed therein or any unknown foreign producers, exporters & domestic importers shall, within 20 days from the next day of the publication of the AD Investigation Notice, submit the application form (see the below link) to identify themselves and express their willingness to participate in the investigation.
Article 21 of the Regulations Governing the Implementation of the Imposition of Countervailing and Anti-Dumping Duties, the statutory instrument that governs the anti-dumping investigation procedures held by the Taiwanese government authorities, provides that “[i]n the event that the interested parties fail to submit the necessary information within the specified time, the competent authority may be free to make determinations on the basis of the facts available”. Nevertheless, those interested parties who opted out of the anti-dumping investigations generally ended up charged with less-favorable dumping margins at the close of investigations in Taiwan. Furthermore, as the MOF generally evaluates the feasibility of an interested party’s proposed terms of undertaking based on the respective dumping margin identified at the end of the preliminary determination, active participation in the anti-dumping investigation has become a prerequisite in practice for an interested party to apply for a price undertaking within 30 days from the next day of the public notice of the preliminary determination of the investigation.
Any interested party to the AD Investigation Notice which intends to contain the risk exposures in association with opting out of the anti-dumping investigation and/or to strategically deploy defense strategies to meet one of the prerequisites in connection with price undertaking application is advised to seek counsel and actively participate in the investigation.
Here is the application form for any interested foreign producer / exporter: https://web.customs.gov.tw/download/354a9040569c46f8a70c7616e001b323
