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WASHINGTON - (Business Wire) The U.S. Department of Commerce has issued an affirmative final determination in the antidumping duty investigation of imports of polyethylene retail carrier bags (i.e., plastic grocery and shopping bags) from Taiwan. Commerce found that imports are being dumped, i.e., sold in the U.S. market at less than fair value. The final dumping margins calculated by Commerce for the Taiwanese producers and exporters range from 36.54 percent to 95.81 percent.

Commerce also is conducting antidumping investigations of plastic bags from Vietnam and Indonesia and a countervailing duty (anti-subsidy) investigation of plastic bags from Vietnam. Final determinations are expected to be issued at the end of this week in those investigations.

Commerce initiated these investigations pursuant to a petition filed on March 31, 2009, by Hilex Poly Co., LLC, and Superbag Corporation. On May 14, 2009, the U.S. International Trade Commission (“ITC”) preliminarily determined by a unanimous vote that the domestic industry is materially injured by reason of dumped imports from Indonesia, Taiwan, and Vietnam. The ITC is expected to announce its final decision within 45 days. If the ITC makes an affirmative final determination, Commerce will issue an antidumping duty order directing U.S. Customs and Border Protection to assess antidumping duties on all imports of the subject polyethylene retail carrier bags from Taiwan. In addition, U.S. importers of plastic bags from Taiwan will be required to pay a cash deposit on each entry sufficient to cover the estimated antidumping duties, i.e., 36.54 percent to 95.81 percent of the entered value.

Petitioners’ legal counsel, Joe Dorn, of King & Spalding in Washington, DC, stated: “The petitioning companies and their workers greatly appreciate these actions taken by the U.S. government to offset unfair prices with antidumping duties. The antidumping duties should help restore fair competition to the U.S. market and enable these companies to keep plants and jobs in the United States.”

The purpose of the antidumping law is to offset the unfair competitive advantage that foreign exporters enjoy as a result of selling merchandise in the United States at less than fair value. The law provides for antidumping duties to be collected on imports that are subject to an antidumping order. Customs assesses antidumping duties based on application of the percentage dumping margin to the entered value of the merchandise.

The company-specific final dumping margins are as follows:

Taiwanese Producer/Exporter
                             

Margin
Ipsido Corporation                        95.81%
TCI Plastic Co. Ltd.                        36.54%
All others                                     36.54%