Nan Ya Plastics Corp (南亞塑膠) yesterday said an anti-dumping penalty tariff imposed by Brazil over the company’s polyethylene terephthalate (PET) resin does not pose any impact on the company’s financial condition or its operations.
The company said in a Taiwan Stock Exchange filing that PET resin is among several items produced by the company, but it is produced in very small amounts compared with other products, accounting for merely 0.08 percent of its overall shipments to Brazil in 2014.
PET resin is a raw material commonly used to produce soda, juice and cooking oil containers. The material is also used for a wide range of other products, such as audio and video disks and cinematic film stock.
The company’s remarks came after Brazilian authorities last month ruled Nan Ya and another Taiwanese chemical firm, Lealea Enterprise Co (力麗化纖), sold PET resins at unfairly low prices in the Latin American country, which would subject them to an anti-dumping tariff of 52.1 percent, a level which had been stated in a preliminary ruling by Brazil’s Council of Chamber of External Commerce (CAMEX).
The tariff took effect on Monday last week and is to remain for five years.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement on its Web site on Friday that the two firms faced the financial punishment because they failed to respond to questions CAMEX raised in an investigation.
However, Nan Ya said this was not the case. The company said it was not being uncooperative with CAMEX, it just considered it unnecessary to reply to its questions, as the firm had not exported any PET resin to Brazil since last year.
Far Eastern New Century Corp (遠東新世紀), on the other hand, was found to have been in compliance with anti-dumping laws in Brazil when it sold PET resin to the Latin American country.
The ministry said that Far Eastern appeared very active about responding to the questions raised by CAMEX during the investigation, which might have led the Brazilian agency to maintain its earlier ruling that the Taiwanese firm was not involved in unfair pricing practices.
The case was brought by M&G Polimeros Brasil SA in April last year. It accused firms from Taiwan, China, India and Indonesia of contravening anti-dumping laws on PET resin. The Brazilian authorities launched an investigation in June last year and issued the final ruling on Nov. 23.
To help local companies handle anti-dumping probes, the Bureau of Foreign Trade accepts applications for legal subsidies of up to NT$3 million (US$93,976) each from firms that have been accused of dumping by a foreign country.
According to the Ministry of Finance, the amount of PET resin Taiwanese companies sold to Brazil accounted for 1.88 to 2.95 percent of the nation’s total PET resin exports from 2012 to last year.
Additional reporting by Kuo Chia-erh
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