CEBU CITY -- Homegrown mosquito coil manufacturer Green Coil Industries, Inc. yesterday reiterated the need to protect the local industry from low-cost imports and lauded the Trade department’s decision to impose provisional safeguard duties on SC Johnson’s mosquito coils.

Orvi G. Ortega, legal counsel to Green Coil, said the importation by SC Johnson & Son, Inc. Philippines of mosquito coils from Indonesia has forced some homegrown companies to shut down and threatened the livelihood of thousands of farmers and suppliers.

In Cebu, only Green Coil’s Lion-Tiger brand and its related brands remain in the market to compete with SC Johnson’s imported Baygon brand. The Lion-Tiger brand has been in the market since 1952. "Other popular local brands like Elephant Katol and Patrol are no longer in the market," Mr. Ortega said.

Green Coil, however, has been suffering from sales contraction and lower production volumes since 2007, a year after SC Johnson’s mosquito coil imports from Indonesia surged. SC Johnson’s mosquito coil imports surged in 2006 to 626,221 kilos from 75,356 kg in 2005 and further rose to 2.68 million kg in 2007, state data showed.

Green Coil, which filed the anti-dumping complaint against SC Johnson, is preparing for the plant visit this week by the Anti-Dumping Task Force of the Tariff Commission as part of the formal investigation into its complaint.

The commission began its formal investigation last month, after the Department of Trade and Industry endorsed the complaint and imposed a provisional 120-day anti-dumping duty of 40 US cents/kg on imported mosquito coils from Indonesia.

SC Johnson had criticized the DTI order, issued on Feb. 15, and denied allegations of dumping, an unfair trade practice wherein a manufacturer exports a product at a price that is either below the price in the home.