EU imposes duties on lighter imports from Vietnam

25/03/2013 12:00 - 480 Views

Despite dropping its investigation back in December 2012 into the possible circumvention through Vietnam of EU measures against the exports of Chinese lighters, the European Union has decided to impose definitive anti-dumping (AD) duties on Vietnamese lighters of €0.065 per lighter.

The investigation – initiated in June 2012 – was called off on 14 December 2012 after the European Commission refused to extend AD measures against Chinese lighters, measures that had been applied on every single Chinese lighter for the past 21 years. As a direct impact of this decision, the registration of imports of lighters consigned from Vietnam was no longer required.

This decision “does not prejudge the conclusions of the investigations,” the Commission noted at the time. Indeed, it has decided to collect a duty on imports of “non-refillable pocket flint lighters” consigned from Vietnam from 27June 2012 until 13 December 2012 under Regulation (EU) 260/2013, published in the Official Journal of the EU on 22 March.

According to the results of the investigation, there was a significant increase of imports from Vietnam to the Union, from 0.6% of Union imports in 1998 to 84% in 2012, and a significant decrease of imports from China to the Union during the same period, from 30% to 10% of share of all imports. At the same time, there was also an increase in exports of lighter parts from China to Vietnam from 3% in 1999 to 26% in 2010. It was therefore concluded that the definitive AD measures imposed on imports of lighters originating in China “was circumvented by assembly line operations via Vietnam”.

Friday 22 March 2013

By Lénaïc Vaudin d’Imécourt

Source: europolitics.info