The European Union may scrap a 14- year-old tariff on imports from China of a chemical used in cosmetics and perfumes because France’s Rhodia SA stopped making it in the EU.
The European Commission opened a review into whether to remove the duty on coumarin of 3,479 euros ($4,923) a metric ton, a step that would aid importers and users such as Germany’s Henkel AG. The probe will last as long as 15 months.
Rhodia was the 27-nation EU’s only maker of coumarin until the company ceased production in August, according to the commission. The EU introduced the import tax in 1996 and prolonged it most recently in 2008 for five years to help Rhodia compete against below-cost -- or “dumped” -- imports from China.
“An examination will be made as to whether or not the maintenance of the existing anti-dumping measures is warranted,” the commission, the EU’s trade authority in Brussels, said today in the Official Journal. “Changes have occurred to the Union industry of coumarin.”
In the past six years, the EU has extended the duty against China to Indonesia, Malaysia, India and Thailand after concluding that Chinese exporters shipped coumarin via those four countries to evade the levy.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Stearns in Brussels at jstearns2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jim Hertling at jhertling@bloomberg.net