By Andrzej Zwaniecki
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) has voted against imposing antidumping duties on U.S. imports of certain steel products from five countries.

In an August 27 negative final determination, the commissioners ruled 4-1 that domestic producers were not hurt by imports of cold-rolled carbon steel flat products from Australia, India, Japan, Sweden and Thailand.

Imposition of antidumping duties requires affirmative final determinations both from the Commerce Department that dumping occurred and from USITC that a U.S. industry was injured or threatened.

In July the Commerce Department issued its affirmative final dumping determinations on imports from all five countries and calculated the dumping margins ranging from 24 to 153.6 percent.

As the consequence of the USITC negative determination the U.S. Customs Service is obliged to refund cash deposits or bonds it has collected on the subject imports since September 2001 after Commerce issued the preliminary ruling on dumping.

Dumping is the sale of an export good at a price below the home-market or a third-country price, or below the cost of production. The dumping margin is the price difference expressed as a percentage of the export price.

In 2001 the combined imports of cold-rolled carbon steel flat products from the five markets amounted to more than $428 million.

USITC is scheduled to issue September 23 the final ruling on related dumping and subsidy cases concerning imports of these products from 12 other markets.

In another set of investigations, the Commerce Department ruled August 26 that U.S. imports of carbon and certain alloy steel wire products from Brazil, Canada, Germany, Indonesia, Mexico, Moldova and Ukraine were dumped on the U.S. market.

In its affirmative final determination, the department said the dumping margins ranged from 4 to 369 percent.

The department made an affirmative final determination that the steel wire from Brazil, Canada and Germany was also subsidized. However, it determined that such products from Trinidad and Tobago and Turkey were not subsidized.

Imposition of countervailing duties to offset the subsidies also requires an affirmative final injury determination by USITC. A subsidy is a grant conferred on a producer by a government.

The department also made a final determination that "critical circumstances" exist for steel wire imported from Germany, Moldova and Ukraine.

Affirmative final determinations from USITC on "critical circumstances" would allow imposition of antidumping and countervailing duties retroactively on these imports back to November 2001.

Critical circumstances provisions aim to avert a surge of imports triggered by the antidumping investigation.

The final USITC determinations are expected in October.

The Commerce Department calculated the dumping margins and net subsidy rates as follows:

-- Brazil:
Dumping margins: Companhia Siderurgica Belgo-Mineira, 94.73 percent; all others, 74.35 percent.
Subsidy rates: Companhia Siderurgica Belgo-Mineira, 6.74 percent; Gerdau S.A., 4.44 percent; all others, 6.11 percent.

-- Canada:
Dumping margins: Ispat Sidbec Inc., 2.54; Ivaco Inc., 13.35 percent; Stelco Inc., 1.18 percent; all others, 9.91 percent.
Subsidy rates: Ivaco Inc. and Stelco Inc., 0 percent; all others, 6.61 percent.

-- Germany:
Dumping margins: Saarstahl AG, 15.12 percent; all others, 15.12 percent.
Subsidy rates: Saarstahl AG, 18.46 percent; Ispat Hamburger Stahlwerke GmbH, 1.12 percent; all others, 16.26 percent.

-- Indonesia:
Dumping margins: country-wide, 4.06 percent.

-- Mexico:
Dumping margins: country-wide, 20.11 percent.

-- Moldova:
Dumping margins: country-wide, 369.10 percent.

-- Trinidad and Tobago:
Dumping margins: country-wide, 11.40 percent.

-- Ukraine:
Dumping margins: country-wide, 116.37 percent.

In 2001 the combined U.S. imports of carbon and alloy steel wire rod from all nine markets subject to the investigation amounted to $2,274 thousand.