The Canadian International Trade Tribunal has made a final determination that aluminum extrusions into the country from China has caused injury or threaten to cause injury to the domestic market. This confirms a preliminary determination by the Canadian government, finding injury to the Canadian market by the Chinese imports.
The ruling comes following a determination by the president of the Canada Border Services Agency that found that aluminum extrusions originating in or exported from the China have been dumped and subsidized. Antidumping and or countervailing duties will be imposed since the Tribunal finds that dumped or subsidized products are injuring or threatening to injure the Canadian producers. Any objections to an imposition of antidumping and countervailing duties must be submitted to the Tribunal by May 1st 2009.
China's Ministry of Commerce earlier this month strongly protested the Canadian government's decision. MOC spokesman Mr Yao Jian said that Canada's judgment that China's aluminum extrusion industry is not a market oriented industry is false as the industry is a highly competitive sector, mainly run by private companies.
Mr Yao said that there were also problems in the investigation procedures conducted by Canada, arguing Canada's decision of determining the dumping margin by relying on surrogate data and, meanwhile, collecting countervailing duties was against rules of the World Trade Organization. He added that Chinese enterprises are evaluating Canada's final decision and China Nonferrous Metals Industry has suggested the government should ask the WTO to probe the case.
The president of the Canadian Border Services Agency launched the investigation on August 18th 2009 into the alleged injurious dumping and subsidizing of Chinese aluminum extrusion shipments. The complaint was filed by Almag Aluminum, Apel Extrusions, Can Art Aluminum Extrusion, Metra Aluminum, Signature Aluminum Canada, Spectra Aluminum Products and Spectra Anodizing, claiming they had suffered injury as result of dumped and subsidized imports of aluminum extrusions from China.
While the Canadian extruders proceeded with filing a petition, which led to an investigation and positive final determinations, the US extruders put their efforts on hold, as proving a case in the US was harder and more costly than the smaller Canadian market. Extruders have said it would cost about USD 1.5 million to USD 2 million to launch a complaint. And at a time when business is down considerably, this could hit extruders hard.
