India determines injury from Chinese FKM imports

The Indian Ministry of Commerce has determined that the domestic industry has suffered "material injury and material retardation" from the import of fluoroelastomers from China.

In a Dec. 27 ruling, the Directorate General of Trade Remedies, the ministry's investigation arm, said it had established that dumping was taking place.

The directorate recommended anti-dumping duties ranging from $0.078 per kilogram to $7.31/kg 11.4 on FKM originating from China.According to the DGTR, the prices of Chinese suppliers have been lower than non-Chinese suppliers, by an average of $12.9/kg in period of investigation only.

The market share of Chinese suppliers has also risen from 32 percent in 2014-15 to 43 percent in POI, while the share of non-Chinese supplies fell from 68 percent to 44 percent.

"These shifts from non-Chinese sources to Chinese sources [are] clearly driven out of significant price difference between Chinese and non-Chinese suppliers," the Indian authority said.The document also cited a recent determination by the U.S. authorities, which found a dumping margin of 84.8 percent on Chinese FKM suppliers, as further evidence of dumping.

The Indian finance ministry will now take a final decision whether to impose the duties.

DGTR launched its investigations into dumping activities of Chinese FKM importers in August, acting on a complaint by India's sole FKM supplier Gujarat Fluorochemicals Ltd.